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00:00:30Wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee, wee,
00:01:00Africa is a land of vast planes like the Serengeti and Africa is a land of
00:01:24delicate beauty with graceful creatures like the flamingos and of magnificent
00:01:30mountains like Kirimanjaro in Tanzania and colossal cataracts like Victoria
00:01:36Falls on the Zambezi. Victoria is twice as high as Niagara.
00:01:45Some of Africa's birds are so large you can feed a family of ten from a single
00:01:50ostrich egg.
00:01:54Africa has its share of weird and wonderful creatures like the chameleon
00:02:06which has its eyes set in turrets. While one looks straight up the other can look
00:02:10straight down all at the same instant. That's what the boss should have in the
00:02:14office. One of the oddest creatures in Africa is the pangolin. Although it is a
00:02:21mammal it has scales like a reptile.
00:02:27Termites are the wrecking crew of Africa. In one week they can completely devour a
00:02:32thatched native hut carrying the bits and pieces of grass into their
00:02:36underground fortress.
00:02:42Africa has its share of poisonous creatures like the boomslang, a deadly
00:02:47tree snake. And there is the puff adder which literally walks on its ventral
00:02:56muscles. And there is the tsetse fly which transmits the dreaded sleeping
00:03:02sickness. It feeds solely on blood which it sucks from the skin of its victim. In
00:03:07this case the arm of a Briton in Tanzania.
00:03:13After a full meal of blood his abdomen is so distended he can hardly fly. Many
00:03:19of Africa's plants are equipped with defensive devices to help them survive.
00:03:27But some of Africa's creatures lose in the conflict for survival. Fish are
00:03:32constantly dying in the jaws of crocodiles. A turtle dove falls prey to a
00:03:38fast-flying falcon. Predators must prey on others for without death there would
00:03:45be no life. And here in Africa life constantly regenerates itself.
00:03:56Young antelope are thrust into a strange and often cruel world. They are
00:04:03frequently the victims of crocodiles.
00:04:23They are also often the victims of lions.
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00:05:01But large animals like the Cape buffalo are sometimes though not always
00:05:06successful in beating off an attack by the King of Beasts.
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00:06:03A lioness locked her jaws on the throat of this wildebeest in a vice-like grip
00:06:07from which it could not escape.
00:06:14Newborn crocodiles rarely survive beyond the first week, falling easy victim to
00:06:20servals, civets, birds of prey, and even their own parents.
00:06:29Jackals have much to fear from giant eagles.
00:06:33♪♪
00:06:39The martial eagle is the largest and fiercest eagle on the continent of
00:06:43Africa. He has a wingspan of about seven feet and he eats monkeys, snakes,
00:06:48lizards, rabbits, and rodents. He is a very powerful, very spirited bird.
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00:07:16Baby leopards have much to fear from other predators until they grow big and
00:07:21strong enough to defend themselves.
00:07:28And Africa has its share of large, dangerous animals like the rhinoceros.
00:07:33The natives of Africa are just as unusual as its wild creatures.
00:07:37For example, there is the Banyaruanda tribe of the former Belgian Congo,
00:07:41which has the odd custom of chipping their teeth to points because,
00:07:45in their estimation, it enhances their beauty. And besides, they can make out
00:07:49better in a fight.
00:07:52When this fellow bites, he's going to make a good impression.
00:07:56They strike the top of a knife blade with a steel rod and with each strike they
00:08:00knock a chip off the tooth. It's a very painful process and this man will have
00:08:04great difficulty eating or drinking for about three weeks. And believe it or not,
00:08:08he actually pays to have this done.
00:08:18Now let's see what progress he made with that lower tooth.
00:08:25A bit of an argument ensues because the patient, or should I say the victim,
00:08:29is willing to pay five francs but the dentist wants ten francs.
00:08:34This woman is very excited about the whole thing.
00:08:45Some men earn their living by capturing Africa's wild creatures for sale to zoos.
00:08:49One of them is yours truly, capturing a python in Zambia.
00:08:53The technique is to stand just outside of striking range.
00:08:57You have to watch for his teeth. He has long, sharp teeth.
00:09:01And then at the right moment, you grab him by the head.
00:09:08I packed this python in a comfortable wooden crate and sent him by air to my
00:09:12tax collector as a Christmas present.
00:09:19This python is larger than the first. The larger they are, the easier they are
00:09:23to catch because the slower they strike. But, of course, the longer their teeth
00:09:27so you have to exercise a little more care.
00:09:37This snake weighed more than 100 pounds.
00:09:45I travel across the vast expanses of Africa in my pickup truck and my
00:09:49objectives on this trip, in addition to capturing animals for zoos,
00:09:53are to bring back specimens of a new subspecies of Egyptian cobra for the
00:09:57American Museum of Natural History and to assist Uganda government
00:10:01surveyors in mapping an unexplored section of the Mountains of the Moon
00:10:05and to get a taste of high adventure in the years that lay ahead.
00:10:13I often travel off the road and sometimes my only means
00:10:17of navigation is a compass.
00:10:23If I head for the ridge in the center, I'll be right on course.
00:10:29I pitched my camp here in Tanzania and one day as I walked
00:10:33to my safari truck, I saw a startling sight.
00:10:37A full-grown cheetah. I ran for my rifle because in this district
00:10:41cheetah are classed as vermin since they kill so many domestic animals
00:10:45and the government encouraged me to collect any I found.
00:10:49Cheetah are the fastest four-legged animals in the world.
00:11:05Chances are this fellow is half a mile away by now.
00:11:09In most countries and colonies of Africa, cheetah are
00:11:13classed as royal game. That is, you are not permitted to shoot them under any
00:11:17circumstances, but in this district, it's just the reverse.
00:11:21Oh well, it's a nice sunny day, so I think I'll go for a walk to the felt and see what
00:11:25wildlife this district holds in store for me.
00:11:33This rhino is standing just about where I have to walk
00:11:37because there is marshy ground to both left and right.
00:11:41I'm going to skirt as far to the left as I can, but I don't want to provoke him
00:11:45if I can help it since I don't have a rhino on my game license.
00:11:51This rhino weighs about two tons, so game license or no game license,
00:11:55I'm going to slip a cartridge into the chamber just in case,
00:12:01but I'm not going to shoot if I can possibly help it.
00:12:05One step closer, and he would have gotten a bullet.
00:12:17Nope, you just can't go for a walk nowadays.
00:12:23Rubies. Tanzania is rich in minerals,
00:12:27particularly in gemstones, and practically
00:12:31every rock on this outcropping had about eight or ten rubies in it.
00:12:39These are genuine rubies,
00:12:43but I didn't have a geologist's hammer or a pick,
00:12:47and I couldn't very well get them out with my fingernails or my teeth,
00:12:51so they're still there.
00:12:55I got out my pocket chart
00:12:59and made a notation of exactly where this place is
00:13:03in case I decide to come back someday
00:13:07and put a road through here.
00:13:11Here in Tanzania, flies are a scourge
00:13:15to man and beast alike,
00:13:19and if you're not careful,
00:13:23flies are a scourge to man and beast alike.
00:13:27Looks like a couple of Thompson's Gazelles
00:13:31squaring off for some sort of match.
00:13:35Don't look now, but I think there's going to be a fight.
00:13:43I knew it, I knew it.
00:13:47I fought like that once, and just look what happened to me.
00:13:53By George, looks like a fight.
00:14:05Lions, a pride of six,
00:14:09one hiding up in some rocks and five out in the open.
00:14:13The best thing to do in a case like this
00:14:17is to walk right on past and show no sign of fear,
00:14:21because some people think lions do not normally eat people.
00:14:25If you run from a lion, he's bound to give chase.
00:14:29That is the worst possible thing you could do.
00:14:33But lions are like people.
00:14:37They all have different personalities.
00:14:41Where one will decamp, another will stand his ground.
00:14:45This third fellow seemed even less inclined to move
00:14:49than the first two.
00:14:53The next two didn't even look friendly.
00:14:57Notice the hair on the back of his neck.
00:15:05Nope, they're just putting on a performance.
00:15:09This is simply a demonstration to try to frighten me off.
00:15:13This last fellow was a downright coward.
00:15:29Guinea fowl are common here on the plains of Central Africa,
00:15:33but they have many natural enemies,
00:15:37and they must be constantly on the alert
00:15:41if you see one just around the corner.
00:15:47In the uppermost branches of a tree high overhead
00:15:51sits an African hawk eagle,
00:15:55and he scans these guinea fowl very intently
00:15:59because he is hungry.
00:16:05This is how he captures his prey.
00:16:11Like all birds of prey, he kills with his talons,
00:16:15not with his beak.
00:16:19Birds of prey use their beaks only for shredding meat
00:16:23into bite-sized pieces and do not attack
00:16:27or defend themselves with their beaks.
00:16:41Vultures, hundreds of vultures.
00:16:45And as I look below, I see the cause of it.
00:16:49A hyena is dragging a wildebeest carcass through the water.
00:16:53He's got it there so the vultures and jackals can't get to it.
00:16:57He's been feeding on it for so long, he just can't take another bite,
00:17:01but he'll be darned if he'll let anybody else have any.
00:17:05Vultures wait patiently.
00:17:09Others soar overhead.
00:17:21And the jackals wait patiently.
00:17:25Well, now it looks like he's had his fill
00:17:29and the vultures wade in.
00:17:33Vultures spend more time fighting with one another
00:17:37than they do in getting down to eating.
00:17:41They never do seem to get along with their own kind.
00:17:45The jackals are not afraid of the hyena.
00:17:49The hyena is not afraid of the jackal.
00:17:53The hyena is not afraid of the jackal.
00:17:57The hyena is not afraid of the jackal.
00:18:01I found a baby chimpanzee,
00:18:05and at first she was trembling with fear,
00:18:09but in a few minutes she grabbed my jacket with her little fists
00:18:13as if she was looking for protection from the big bad world around her.
00:18:17I guess she thought I looked like a reasonable facsimile of her mother.
00:18:21I called her Trudy, and she now lives in a zoo in America.
00:18:25At this point she had a tummy like a beach ball
00:18:29She was a very clever little ape.
00:18:33Within three or four days I taught her to come to me
00:18:37when I called her by name,
00:18:41which is pretty good going for a wild creature.
00:18:45Next day her relatives paid me a social call
00:18:49and stole some food from my truck.
00:19:15I loaded my truck with animals
00:19:19for the trip to the nearest airport.
00:19:23This is a cheetah cub.
00:19:31Next, a large crate of colorful East African lovebirds,
00:19:35also known as fisher's parakeets.
00:19:39And then we loaded boxes of poisonous snakes.
00:19:43I extended the range of my truck
00:19:47from the normal 300 miles to better than 1,000 miles
00:19:51by carrying these spare jerry cans.
00:19:55Now watch how Trudy grabs my bush jacket with her little fists.
00:19:59Once she gets hold of me like that,
00:20:03you just can't get her off.
00:20:07She's a good girl.
00:20:11She's a good girl.
00:20:15She's a good girl.
00:20:19She's a good girl.
00:20:23Once she gets hold of me like that,
00:20:27you just can't get her off.
00:20:31If you try, she will scream and cry like a little baby,
00:20:35and it's tough to drive with her between you and the wheel,
00:20:39but she's just got to sit right there.
00:20:43On the way I saw some Thompson's gazelles,
00:20:47which are characterized by their windshield wipers in the rear.
00:20:51They're a great way to calm them down.
00:20:55Another one of their natural enemies is the lion.
00:20:59It's no secret this fellow just had a full meal.
00:21:03But their fleet-footedness is the thing that saves them
00:21:07because they can generally outrun their predators.
00:21:11I saw many wildebeest which were having their young
00:21:15about this time of year.
00:21:21The men of the village don't do this,
00:21:25and they think the women are absolutely mad.
00:21:29They paint their faces the same way,
00:21:33but this pigment lasts only about 3 or 4 days,
00:21:37so they have to go through this whole process at least twice a week.
00:21:41Little boys played strange games
00:21:45that I never could quite figure out.
00:21:49In addition, all the women have masculine faces.
00:22:01Then the chief showed me their favorite musical instrument,
00:22:05which they call a lukambi.
00:22:09It is a hollow wooden sounding board
00:22:13on which they have mounted flattened steel nails.
00:22:17I asked the pygmies if they would like to go for a ride in my truck.
00:22:21They thought this would be a great and glorious adventure.
00:22:25The whole village turned out in a single file.
00:22:4160 seconds after I drove up,
00:22:45I saw 39 pygmies on top of and inside of my truck.
00:22:49I bet the Ford Motor Company never knew they could carry this many people.
00:22:55This fellow said he had a spear he would like to trade with me.
00:23:05I just happened to have a piece of cloth
00:23:09I bought in Nairobi for this purpose.
00:23:13The spear struck his fancy.
00:23:17Well, it's a trade. The spear is mine, the cloth is his.
00:23:21We each thought we got a bargain.
00:23:33This fellow that made the trade with me is a very bashful pygmy.
00:23:37He wants to go for a ride in the truck too,
00:23:41but I was the first asking my permission.
00:23:45I never saw such a polite pygmy before.
00:23:49And now we're off for an exciting ride at all of 2 miles per hour.
00:23:53I was afraid that if I went any faster, I'd lose those fellows on top.
00:23:57After living with these tiny people for a few weeks,
00:24:01I visited a Bantu village at the edge of the forest.
00:24:11It was here that I saw how they operate their old-fashioned muzzle loaders.
00:24:15They pour some black powder down the barrel,
00:24:27slide in a paper seal,
00:24:31then drop in a piece of lead
00:24:35fashioned to the shape of a bullet.
00:24:39Whoops, time out for snuff.
00:24:43He can't do his work properly without snuff.
00:24:47He puts as much powder up his nose as he puts down the barrel.
00:24:51Now he cocks the hammer
00:24:55and puts a percussion cap on the striker base.
00:25:01Then he slowly closes the hammer down on it.
00:25:05Now all he has to do in order to fire is simply cock the hammer.
00:25:09Now he's going to demonstrate his prowess with this noisy weapon.
00:25:21Missed by 15 feet.
00:25:25When I arrived in Uganda, I made arrangements with a game ranger
00:25:29to use the launch which the government put at his disposal
00:25:33because I'm searching for monitor lizards and these four-foot lizards
00:25:37frequent the banks of rivers in Central Africa.
00:25:41I'm now on the Victoria Nile between Lake Victoria and Lake Albert
00:25:45and I'm going to scan both banks carefully for these giant monitors.
00:25:59On the way, I saw many of the colorful birds which are so characteristic of this part of Africa.
00:26:03Marabou storks, pelicans, Egyptian geese,
00:26:07darters, and cormorants.
00:26:11This hippo ran along an underwater plateau
00:26:15and then suddenly
00:26:19he stepped off the edge.
00:26:29A yellow-billed kite spotted a dead fish
00:26:33floating on the surface and he swooped down and snatched it up in his talons.
00:26:37I saw many crocodiles
00:26:41along the banks of this river.
00:26:49Then I saw some cattle egrets landing on a mud bank.
00:26:53Aha!
00:26:57It wasn't a mud bank at all.
00:27:01It was a herd of sleeping hippos.
00:27:05You get lots of surprises out here.
00:27:13Crocodiles often wander far from water at night
00:27:17but seldom more than eight or ten feet from it during daylight hours.
00:27:23They have the odd custom of sleeping with their mouths wide open.
00:27:27Notice all the flies in this fellow's mouth.
00:27:33Boy, I hope those flies don't drown.
00:27:41Then I saw some hippos kissing
00:27:45and a couple play fighting.
00:27:53Monitor lizards,
00:27:57just what I was looking for.
00:28:01They're digging in a hole in the sandbank for turtle eggs.
00:28:05Monitors like eggs of all kinds, bird's eggs, crocodile eggs, and turtle eggs.
00:28:09And when they find one, they gulp it down voraciously.
00:28:13I disembarked at a landing
00:28:17that the game ranger had erected nearby
00:28:21and I instructed the crew to return before nightfall
00:28:25with my natives and my camping gear.
00:28:29Meanwhile, I'm going to survey this area for a campsite
00:28:33which will serve as a base for capturing these giant lizards.
00:28:43The next morning, while my camp was under construction,
00:28:47I went out for a walk
00:28:51and on what was practically my front lawn, there was a monitor.
00:29:13I made a rush for him, but he turned the tables on me
00:29:17and for a minute I was wondering who was trying to capture whom.
00:29:21He has very powerful jaws and sharp teeth
00:29:25and you must be very careful how you grab him not to lose a finger.
00:29:29Well, now it's all over but to grab him by the head.
00:29:33But this is easier said than done
00:29:37because he's not going to cooperate one bit.
00:29:41This is what is known as having a lizard by the tail.
00:29:45I packed him in a comfortable wooden crate
00:29:49and sent him off by air express to my animal agent in America.
00:29:53The next morning, I went out for a walk
00:29:57and on what was practically my front lawn, there was a monitor.
00:30:01I made a rush for him, but he turned the tables on me
00:30:05and for a minute I was wondering who was trying to capture whom.
00:30:09Well, now it's all over but to grab him by the head.
00:30:13Something like that.
00:30:19I packed my animals and my gear in my truck
00:30:23and I headed for the Serengeti plains of Tanzania.
00:30:27Serengeti plains of Tanzania
00:30:57Lionesses singing
00:31:17At about this time of the year, lionesses are having their young on the Serengeti plains.
00:31:21They usually have three or four cubs to a litter
00:31:25and stay with them for about two years to protect them from danger when they're tiny
00:31:29and to teach them the fine art of hunting.
00:31:33Lion cubs don't know all the fine points of stalking their prey by instinct.
00:31:37They have to learn these through long, hard hours of instruction from their mother.
00:31:41If they make a mistake, they get cuffed good and hard and they learn mighty fast.
00:31:45Lion show real affection for one another
00:31:49pretty much as in the case of human beings.
00:31:53They have a very closely knit family life.
00:32:01But when a lioness has her young, she is usually in a very nasty protective disposition
00:32:05and this is no time to disturb her or to get too close.
00:32:09But she is very patient and accommodating toward her cubs.
00:32:13She is literally a mobile milk bar out here in the hot, dusty plains of Tanzania.
00:32:21A unique thing about lionesses is that they will nurse cubs from another litter besides their own.
00:32:25They never cared less whose cubs they are.
00:32:29For example, here you'll see that one cub is much larger than the others
00:32:33which shows that this lioness is babysitting for another cub.
00:32:37Yep, life is one big bowl of cherries when you're a lion cub.
00:32:41Ma and Pa do all the work and you have all the fun.
00:32:45These cubs will be full-grown lions in less than three years.
00:32:49Adult males weigh about 450 pounds.
00:32:53Adult females about 350 pounds.
00:32:57Adult males weigh about 450 pounds.
00:33:01Adult females about 350 pounds.
00:33:27Animals can tell when lions are out to make a kill, and when they know that they're not,
00:33:36they will stand by and let one pass very closely. It's sort of a sixth sense that animals have
00:33:41that lets them know this. But these wildebeest and zebra know that this old boy is up to
00:33:46no good, so they give him a wide berth. Actually, he is frightening them to a point downwind
00:33:51where the lionesses are lying in wait with their cubs, because it is the lionesses that
00:33:56usually do the killing for a pride, not the males. Males will condescend to help, but
00:34:01they leave the dirty work up to the ladies, pretty much as in the case of human beings.
00:34:08There is not a tree for miles around, and it's 110 degrees in the shade. Boy, I wish
00:34:28that old man would hurry up and bring home the bacon. So, he accommodates and shifts
00:34:33into second. Now, he shifts into high, and this ostrich decides this is no place for
00:34:44him. And these two hardebeest say, boy, let's get out of here. This is no place for us.
00:35:03In less than an hour, there is nothing left but skin and bones. Lions know what it is to
00:35:15go hungry. Sometimes, they do without meat for four or five days. So, when they have a kill,
00:35:20they make the most of it while it's available. They literally gorge themselves, leaving nothing
00:35:25behind if they can possibly help it. Now, I headed north, and on the way, I crossed an
00:35:36improvised log bridge. The unsettling thing about these bridges is that you never know
00:35:41what load they're built to withstand until you get to the other side, and it might be too late.
00:35:46On the way, I saw one of the most fabulous sights in all of Africa. Kalambo Falls,
00:35:55the highest waterfall on the continent, twice as high as Victoria, a 720-foot drop. It's
00:36:01situated way down at the southern tip of Lake Tanzania on the Tanzania-Zambia border.
00:36:06This waterfall is so high, the entire river atomizes before it strikes bottom. So,
00:36:23it's a perfectly silent waterfall. There's no thunder here whatsoever.
00:36:26Its name Kalambo means greatest of the great in the local vernacular.
00:36:31Zebras have few pleasures in life, but this is one of them.
00:36:52On the way, I discovered that I had several broken spring blades, and I took time out to
00:37:02apply homemade steel clamps. During the years that this safari lasted, I had 19 broken spring
00:37:08blades and 15 flat tires. I brought this truck to Africa on a freighter and sold it in Cape Town a
00:37:13few years later. It is now owned by a man in the suburbs who uses it for selling vegetables.
00:37:19These natives really were a great help. I don't know what I would have done without them.
00:37:50I made a base camp here, and one day as I returned from a hunt, I heard a very strange sound. Two
00:38:05young leopards. I took a quick look around for mother leopard because she would be very displeased
00:38:16if she knew I was going to adopt her cubs. They were about three weeks old and weighed
00:38:20two pounds apiece. I called them Sputnik and Mutnik. As far as I know, mother leopard never
00:38:32did follow me back to camp. At least I never saw her. They were so tiny, they just didn't
00:38:38know what fear was. They are now full-grown, and they live in the zoo in Rochester, New York.
00:38:43I had some dehydrated milk already prepared for my baby antelope, and of course I always
00:38:53carry baby bottles with me when I'm on safari. They're one of the most useful items of equipment.
00:39:14Oh, mother leopard must have been away a long, long time. I fed them up on calcium gluconate,
00:39:20cod liver oil, vitamins, milk, and meat, and they doubled their weight in a month. Leopards
00:39:25are easy to raise, and they make wonderful pets. One day as they were playing at my feet,
00:39:38one of my natives shouted, and there he was, a black mamba, the fastest and deadliest snake in
00:39:48Africa. I ran for my snake stick because these snakes are highly sought after by zoos in America,
00:39:56and I'm going to try to capture him alive. The poison of a mamba acts very much like the poison
00:40:01of a cobra, paralyzing the nerve centers of the body, but it acts much more quickly than cobra
00:40:07venom. I had no serum for the bite of a mamba, so I had to be very careful how I handled it.
00:40:14Mambas have the characteristic of traveling with their heads held high above the ground,
00:40:25which makes it very difficult to pin them down. When a mamba is angry, he flattens his neck.
00:40:38There, now I have his head pinned down. And now it's all over but to pick him up and pop him into
00:40:57a sack and send him by air to America. He is perfectly uninjured and in excellent condition,
00:41:02and he measured exactly eight feet long. Mambas are long, thin, graceful snakes,
00:41:09and they have real poise. But life on safari has its more prosaic moments. For example,
00:41:21sometimes you have to hang up your pajamas, and there are camp pets that require attention from
00:41:28time to time. Natives come to me constantly looking for medical care, like this Maasai
00:41:34tribesman who has a bad eye infection. These tribal natives look upon all Europeans camped
00:41:39in remote bush country as doctors. They believe we all have magical powers, and every day I have
00:41:47at least three or four natives coming to me looking for medical care. I gave him some penicillin
00:41:56capsules and a cup of water, but if you remember, these Maasai drink about as much water as a
00:42:01Frenchman, so I had a devil of a time getting him to swallow these capsules. Notice how reluctant
00:42:18he is about the whole thing. Nope, he doesn't think much of that drink. I asked this fine-looking
00:42:32tribesman to come back the next morning for some more penicillin. His trouble was cleared up in
00:42:36one week. There are lots of chores to take care of around camp. My baby reed buck needed her bottle
00:42:48every four or five hours. And Trudy whooped and hollered like a little girl looking for attention.
00:43:01And I had to take time out occasionally for a bath for myself, and out here there was such a
00:43:08water shortage that I had to bathe in dishwater and save the water after the bath. Meanwhile,
00:43:17Sputnik and Mutnik fought over last night's kudu bone. Leopards grow very fast, and in just seven
00:43:27months, these leopards grew to be a real armful. But chimps don't grow nearly as fast as leopards,
00:43:33and every time I took these beasts out of the compound, Trudy ran for the truck. She wanted
00:43:43no part of these animals anymore. Old Sputnik loved to play roughhouse, and you just couldn't
00:43:50be too rough with him. You could drop him and kick him and step on him right up to the point
00:43:55of breaking his ribs, and he'd come back for more. He loved it. But the thing he loved the
00:44:00best was to be laid on his back and tickled. Sputnik had a passion for going for the back of
00:44:18my neck. After I'd played roughhouse with him, the back of my neck was scratched and bleeding,
00:44:22but of course, it was all in fun. Sputnik weighed about 75 pounds at this point. Boy,
00:44:47I wish he'd leave the back of my neck alone. Sputnik's favorite playmate was Jackie,
00:45:05a dog that belonged to a professional hunter in Livingston, and although they were about the same
00:45:09size and weight, you can see that nature intended them for entirely different functions by the
00:45:15difference in the size of their paws. These two fellas were fast friends. They really loved each
00:45:20other. These are two lions in the Springs Game Reserve in the Transvaal. I included these
00:45:32pictures to show that alongside of Sputnik and Mutnik, these two fellas had absolutely no manners
00:45:37whatsoever. They are not my lions. I'm just visiting them. Each time I played with these
00:45:49beasts, it cost me a shirt, a pair of pants, and a bit of hide. There's the beginning of the end
00:46:09of my shirt. One day, a little boy came running to my camp and told me that a native in the nearby
00:46:28village had been bitten by a cobra a few hours before. I grabbed my hypodermic syringe and serum,
00:46:38and I followed him. But I was too late.
00:47:08I heard a native woman shout, Noha, which in the Celosie language means snake. It was an
00:47:18Egyptian cobra. I couldn't find a stick long enough to pin him down with, so I'll use a
00:47:22twig and capture him by distracting his attention with the kerchief, while I grab his jaws from
00:47:28behind with the other hand. He is a very deadly snake, and I've got to be certain of my aim. This
00:47:35is my helper.
00:48:05This is the snake the American Museum of Natural History was looking for. They believe that
00:48:23Egyptian cobras from this district are a new subspecies, so I sent him off to the museum by
00:48:28air express. A couple of months later, I pitched my camp in a village of Bushmen and recorded their
00:48:43strange language for a professor of anthropology in America. I asked this Bushman to tell me how
00:48:49he collected honey in the forest, and I took it down on my tape recorder. And then, I played it
00:49:00back to him. He refused to believe that that was his own voice. When it was all over, he told me
00:49:13that the little man in the black box said exactly the same thing, the same way he did. After recording
00:49:24his voice for posterity, I gave him some stainless steel mirrors and inexpensive knives. Then, I had
00:49:30a chat with the Induna, or local chief. He had a sad story to tell me. He said that a lion had killed
00:49:37their hunting dogs. This was a real catastrophe for them, because they depended upon their dogs
00:49:42to help them get fresh meat. He asked me if I would shoot the lion. I promised I would look for
00:49:48him the next day and shoot him if possible. I started out the next morning with my two best
00:49:56Bantu trackers from the carcass of one of the dogs, which showed lots of fresh lion tracks. Judging
00:50:03by the size of the tracks, he was a very large lion indeed, and judging by the freshness, he was
00:50:07very close. We knew we would come upon him in a matter of minutes.
00:50:38Must have wounded him badly. In Diowana, Banduki Piga Simba, which in Swahili means,
00:50:45yes, guana, the gun did strike the lion.
00:51:37After me, George.
00:52:07The third shot went through his spine, and he died just as he struck me. He was a full-grown
00:52:23male that weighed about 450 pounds. I asked my native to go to the nearest village and bring
00:52:28back a lot of others to help carry this beast back to the camp for skinning. That African,
00:52:38who is waving his arms in the foreground, was accidentally shot and killed the next day by
00:52:42another native with the same rifle that shot that lion. It is a good object lesson in the
00:52:47fact that you can never be too careful in the handling of firearms.
00:53:17Then I headed for Fort Portal, Uganda, where I had been invited by the government to witness the
00:53:24rare event of exploration in modern times. There is a huge marketplace here for natives. Fort Portal
00:53:32is the traditional jumping-off point for expeditions up the Mountains of the Moon,
00:53:36otherwise known as the Rwanzori Range, and it was here that I met with the chief mapper for Uganda.
00:53:42He explained that the government is sending an expedition to the top of the Mountains of the
00:53:46Moon to map the upper reaches of the Nyamagosani River, which has never been seen or mapped above
00:53:52the 7,000-foot level before. He explained that the river valley is constantly shrouded in clouds,
00:53:57and aerial photos have shown nothing of it because of the solid cloud coverage. According to the
00:54:04government, no one to their knowledge has ever set foot in that river valley above the 7,000-foot
00:54:09level before. Three weeks later, we started out at the north end of Lake Edward with 50 African
00:54:16porters. The first order of business was a negotiation over wages, and this consumed exactly two hours.
00:54:21After compromising on a wage, we got together the food for the porters. We had 150 pounds of
00:54:39dried hippo meat, 600 pounds of peanuts, 1,200 pounds of cassava flour, and a live goat and
00:54:44sheep to provide fresh meat. We doled out blankets because where we're going, the altitude is high
00:54:52and the temperature is low. Ruanzori is higher than any of the Alps in Europe. The summit is at
00:54:5716,800 feet above sea level, and there's ice at the top year-round. Headloads were weighed out at
00:55:0450 pounds apiece. We have a 50-mile walk ahead of us because we're crossing the range in the long
00:55:10direction from south to north. Now starts a long, hard three-week climb which cost us the life of
00:55:27one man before it was finished. Cheetah wandered in off the plains to the foothills of Ruanzori,
00:55:36and it was here that we saw more than a dozen different kinds of lizards. The streams were
00:55:44numbingly cold because they were the runoff from glaciers. We saw lots of game in the rainforest
00:56:01on the approach, even a few pythons. Soon we left far below us the villages from which our
00:56:14Bakonjo tribesmen came. We picked these Bakonjo because they live in the foothills and are
00:56:21accustomed to carrying heavy loads up steep slopes. They are tough, wiry Africans. The chimps that we
00:56:29saw along the way were talking to each other in chimpanzee. We chopped firewood at the end of the
00:56:37seventh day at an elevation of about 7,000 feet. Some of us camped in a clearing on the right,
00:56:45and some on the left. One of our men caught a tree hyrax in a snare and they carved it up for
00:57:01supper that night. It was here that we saw the typical creeping crawling creatures so
00:57:21characteristic of this part of Africa, including the safari ant, the most insidious insect in all
00:57:27of Africa, bar none. At the end of the eighth day, our natives collected moss for mattresses.
00:57:33Then they broke out their cassava flour, which is made by grinding the roots of the manioc tree.
00:57:40This is their staple diet. They mix it with water, stir it over a fire, and roll it into
00:57:45little balls and pop it into their mouths. And it tastes terrible, but they love it.
00:58:04They also had mutton for the evening meal. We didn't go much for the cassava flour,
00:58:14so we broke out some tin goods. The man on the left is the head of the Department
00:58:23of Lands and Surveys for the Uganda government. And this is a British mountain climber who was
00:58:39invited to guide us across the ice fields. He's had considerable experience climbing
00:58:44the Himalayas of Tibet. And this seedy-looking character is yours truly.
00:58:48After a satisfying meal, the boys fashion pipes from long-stemmed jungle plants.
00:58:58And then the clouds rolled in. Rwenzori is almost constantly shrouded in clouds.
00:59:14In a few minutes, the visibility dropped to a few yards and it was cold and clammy. This
00:59:25is typical Rwenzori weather. Next morning, we got up early. We took sightings on the
00:59:46elevations of nearby peaks and found in many instances the latest government charts were
00:59:51in error. And now the temperature dropped close to the freezing point. There is the
01:00:02valley through which the government suspects the Nyamagosani River flows. They're not sure,
01:00:07because it has never been seen above the 7,000-foot level before, and we are much
01:00:11higher than that now. As usual, it is shrouded in heavy mist. And there is the source of that
01:00:17river at 13,500 feet above sea level. This is the first time it has ever been seen or filmed.
01:00:24The river had an eerie appearance, because it was so heavily shrouded in mist. We wanted to
01:00:30map the upper reaches of this river, but we were defeated by logistics, because we had a seven-day
01:00:35march to a point where an advance party had cashed away food for the porters at a forward
01:00:39base and had only a seven-day supply of porter food remaining, which meant that we had to start
01:00:44out the very next day if we were to keep from running out of food. This happened because our
01:00:49porters were eating at a higher rate than we had calculated on. The river flowed through a forest,
01:01:00which was festooned with hanging moss. We saw a placid pool at the 12,000-foot level. We checked
01:01:18our charts for the best approach to the rock divide, which separates us from the snow peaks,
01:01:22which is where the advance party had cashed away the food, and now starts the hardest,
01:01:27coldest part of the climb. It rained for 17 days out of the three weeks, which made the
01:01:40rocks doubly slippery and treacherous. All of our gear was constantly soaking because of the
01:01:50incessant rain and because the sun never shone long enough for us to dry it out. When the temperature
01:01:55dropped below freezing, we found we often had ice in the tent in the mornings. One of the men in
01:02:00the advance party died of pneumonia four days after they crossed the tree line. He was a 31-year-old
01:02:05Briton. This is the first time in my life that I had ever climbed a really big mountain, and it
01:02:21will probably be the last. We saw a lake, which was discovered two years previously, but which
01:02:32remained unnamed. It is the policy of the Uganda government to name new geographical features after
01:02:38local names. Our guide said he calls it Kachopi. Henceforth, on all government charts, this will
01:02:44be known as Lake Kachopi. This is the top of the rock divide, which separates us from the snow
01:02:50peaks. And there at the foot of this glacier are two tiny huts. In one of these, the advance party
01:03:16cashed away food, and left behind one of their men, who's been awaiting our arrival for one week.
01:03:21Needless to say, he was very pleased to see us. He is a young Oxford graduate, who is now in the
01:03:37government service in Tanzania. He said that he had taken sightings on the elevation and azimuths
01:03:45of nearby peaks, and found many errors in the latest government charts, just as we had. It's
01:03:50not hard to realize when you consider that Rwenzori was discovered less than 100 years ago,
01:03:54and a good deal of the upper reaches still remain incompletely met. After a warm meal in his hut,
01:04:06we started out across the ice fields, which, believe it or not, are right on the equator.
01:04:10There is ice up here all year round. We are at the top of Stanley Mountain, at the very
01:04:16summit of the Mountains of the Moon, with Uganda on our left and the Congo on our right.
01:04:20These glaciers are actually rivers of ice.
01:04:28Our progress here dropped to less than one half mile per day, not only because of the
01:04:45rarefied air, but because of the steepness of some of the glaciers that we had to cross. There
01:04:51were huge crevasses, which were about 200 feet deep, covered by a thin crust of ice,
01:04:56and we had to be very careful how we walked across these areas not to fall through. These
01:05:01are the very first drops of the White Nile from a glacier melting at the top of Rwenzori. These
01:05:06drops join together with the drops from other glaciers to form tiny rivulets, which race down
01:05:11the rocky faces. These rivulets join together to form little streams that run through the vegetation
01:05:17a few thousand feet below, and the streams combine to form a real river, which ultimately becomes the
01:05:23mighty Nile of Egypt. At this point, the entire volume of the Nile surges through a narrow cleft
01:05:33of rock only 19 feet wide as it races toward Lake Albert. There is tremendous thunder and
01:05:40power in this tiny little chasm. So it is here, on the roof of Africa, that the Nile is born,
01:05:51nearly 4,000 miles from its mouth in the Mediterranean. From rivers of ice to mountains
01:05:58of fire, less than 100 miles from Rwenzori, a volcano was in full eruption. I asked the owner
01:06:05of a light plane if he would fly me over it. He said he would be pleased to, as he'd seen the
01:06:10smoke from the eruption a few days before, and was just as curious to see it at close range as
01:06:14I was. This volcano was born from a perfectly flat forest. When a fissure suddenly opened up
01:06:20in the ground and molten lava flew skyward, it was one of the rare instances in recorded times
01:06:26that a volcano was born from a perfectly flat surface. We saw great destruction to the forest
01:06:46below us as a result of the lava flows. A river of molten lava flowed for 16 miles through the
01:06:53forest, causing the destruction of thousands of acres of woodland. Those patches of white
01:06:58are steam resulting from the rain that's falling now, vaporizing when it strikes the hot lava.
01:07:16We felt intense heat inside the cockpit on the side facing the eruption.
01:07:46This is how the sun looked through the column of steam coming out of the crater. Back down on the
01:08:06ground, I hired four Congolese to carry my photo and camping gear, and we went on a foot safari to
01:08:12get a closer look. The acid fallout from the crater killed all the vegetation for a radius
01:08:17of 20 miles. The trees are completely denuded of their leaves from the acid fallout. The lava
01:08:26fields were very, very hot, and we had to step lively. It was raining, and when the rain struck
01:08:44the hot lava, it vaporized instantly, cutting our visibility down to a few yards. At times,
01:08:49we didn't know whether we were walking toward the volcano or away from it. The only way we
01:08:54could tell was by homing in on the tremendous roar, and sometimes this was very deceptive. We
01:09:03had to call to each other constantly to keep from being separated, and in spite of that,
01:09:07one of my natives was lost for more than an hour. When the rain stopped, the visibility cleared,
01:09:16and we found this kingfisher, which apparently died from the intense gases coming out of the
01:09:20crater. Now we were walking across scoriaceous lava, that is, huge blocks of very jagged lava,
01:09:27which is sharp as glass, and you must be very careful how you walk across it not to let the
01:09:32calves of your legs rub against it, or it would cut them to ribbons. When we were within half a
01:09:47mile of the eruption, we were walking on about 14 inches of porous black ash, which crunched
01:09:52audibly as we stepped across it. Some of this light black ash was being carried more than 20
01:09:57miles away by the winds aloft. Molten lava flowed around tree trunks, and the intense heat consumed
01:10:05the lower part of the trunk, leaving gaping holes, and you had to be very careful not to step in one
01:10:10of these. The temperature of molten lava is about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, or about the same as
01:10:20molten steel. I threw a rock in this river of molten lava, and it bounced and floated, because
01:10:32it was the same density as the river itself. There were huge boulders floating in the river,
01:10:47boulders as large as automobiles.
01:11:02This lava is coming from about 30 miles below the earth's surface. This river is 100 feet wide,
01:11:26and it is flowing through the west branch of the Great Rift Valley in the eastern part of the Congo
01:11:31in Kivu province. My natives were deathly afraid of this volcano, not only for obvious reasons,
01:11:38but because they were so steeped in superstition, they thought this was their fire god, and they
01:11:43thought that if they got too close, he would recognize their faces. So I had to pay them a
01:11:48bonus to get them up this close. In spite of the bonus, they moaned and groaned and groused like a
01:12:11bunch of G.I.s the whole trip. You never heard so many tales of woe from so few men before in your
01:12:17life. In spots, hydrogen gas seeped to the surface and burned, and when hydrogen burns,
01:12:24it forms water vapor, and this is one of the rare examples of newborn water on the face of the earth.
01:13:17This volcano erupted continuously for five months, and then after causing destruction to
01:13:39thousands of acres of woodland, the eruption slackened. And then I could look right down into
01:13:50the throat and see the boiling, seething lake of molten lava at the very bottom. I came to Africa
01:13:56in a quest for high adventure, and now I was leaving it with the feeling that I had found it
01:14:01indeed, and more than a fair share for one man.