Theodore Roosevelt: African Game Trails (Annotated)

*NOTE: From this Public Domain work, the original publication was, scanned, assembled, proofed, with additional historic photographs and text added as appropriate by the editor. – Galen C. Dukes, 2011.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858 – 1919) was the 26th president of the United States and a noted sportsman and naturalist. We have him to thank for our national park system, and the preservation and protection of much of our endangered wildlife.
In April 1909 (through March 1910), shortly after the end of his presidency, Roosevelt, then 50 years old, and along with his 19 year old son Kermit, left New York for a safari in east and central Africa. Roosevelt's party landed in Mombassa, British East Africa (now Kenya), traveled to the Belgian Congo (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) before following the Nile up to Khartoum in modern Sudan. Financed by Andrew Carnegie and by his own writing contract, Roosevelt's party hunted for specimens for the Smithsonian Institution and for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The group included scientists from the Smithsonian and was led by hunter-tracker R.J. Cunninghame, and sometimes accompanied by Frederick Selous, a famous big game hunter and explorer. Roosevelt brought with him four tons of salt for preserving animal hides, and an elephant-rifle donated by a group of admiring Britons.
Roosevelt and his companions killed or trapped over 11,397 animals, from insects and moles to hippopotamuses and elephants. These included 512 big game animals, including six rare white rhinos. Tons of salted animal skins, heads and bones, were shipped to Washington. The quantity was so large that it took years to mount them all, and the Smithsonian was able to share many duplicate animals with other museums.
African Game Trails is a detailed account of this year long adventure. His detailed description of the hunt, and the experiences of those who were a part of the Safari are without parallel, both educational and entertaining.
This Kindle version also contains numerous photographs of the Safari, not included with the original publication.