On the first safari, Akeley may have seemed a bumbling fool, but there were scrapes that showed us what he was made of – leveling his rifle at a native caravan that refused them aid, arresting two of his crew run amok, one for mayhem, the other for attempted murder. And then came the day in the highlands of the Maud when he went looking for an ostrich and found a leopard.
But first, Akeley shot a warthog. No problem, he needed one for the Field collection. He proceeded fruitlessly after ostrich, and upon his tramp back to camp at the end of the day, encountered a leopard feeding on his hog. “You have to kill a leopard right down to the end of its tail,” Akeley later said. But he didn’t. After four wild shots, he managed only to nick one rear paw.
The cat’s charge sent Akeley sprawling, his rifle flying. No gun, no knife, he wrestled the beast down, pinning its front claws with his knees, staying clear of the rear ones, which were fixing to disembowel him. Jaws were another problem. Carl solved that by stuffing his arm down the animal’s throat, the easiest part of the match, as the leopard had his hand in its mouth already. When he felt the cat’s ribs start to pop, he knew he was home free.
But not quite. Back at camp, Elliot and the guides heard the shooting. “Either a dust-up with the natives, or a melee with an animal. In either case, it will be over before we get there.” So they kept eating. Akeley staggered back in due time.
To his credit, Elliot was down with malaria, not drunk. His malaria and Akeley’s eventual blood poisoning put an end to that first safari, good thing. Both of them got drunk on the way home and stayed that way, nursing ailments with regular doses of champagne, quaffed warm from tin cups. “A pretty mean drink,” Akeley reckoned.
This story plus 40 other exciting others by some of the greatest hunting authors, including Ruark, Hemingway and Capstick, can be found in Sporting Classics’ Africa.
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