AFRICAN GAME TRAILS : AN ACCOUNT OF THE AFRICAN WANDERINGS OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER-NATURALIST; (With Illustrations from Photographs by Kermit Roosevelt and Other Members of the Expedition, and from Drawings by Philip R. Goodwin
by Roosevelt, Theodore
- Used
- very good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good
- Seller
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Eugene, Oregon, United States
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About This Item
Chapters include: A Railroad Through the Pleistocene; On an East African Ranch; Lion Hunting on the Kapiti Plains; On Safari. Rhino and Giraffe; Juja Farm; Hippo and Leopard; A Buffalo-Hunt by the Kamiti; Trekking Through the Thirst to the Sotik; Hunting in The Sotik; To Lake Naivasha; Elaphant Hunting on Mount Kenia; The Guaso Nyero; A River of the Equatorial Desert; To the Uasin Gishu; Uganda, and the Great Nyanza Lakes; The Great Rhinocerous of the Lado. Down the Nile; The Giant Eland. Chapters are followed by five appendices: Personal Acknowledgements; Lists of Mammals; Heller's Notes; Loring's Notes; Biological Survey of Mount Kenia; Protective Coloration in Animals; The Pigskin Library. All followed by an Index.
Synopsis
Theodore Roosevelt declined to run for reelection as President of the United States in 1908. Partly as a vacation, partly to avoid the press as his friend Taft set up a new administration, (and partly for self-promotion), T.R. set out for Africa to hunt big game and collect specimens for a future exposition at the Smithsonian. Scribner's magazine underwrote the trip by paying $50,000 for twelve articles. It is these articles that eventually became African Game Trails.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. 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.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Aardvark Rare Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 86970
- Title
- AFRICAN GAME TRAILS : AN ACCOUNT OF THE AFRICAN WANDERINGS OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER-NATURALIST; (With Illustrations from Photographs by Kermit Roosevelt and Other Members of the Expedition, and from Drawings by Philip R. Goodwin
- Author
- Roosevelt, Theodore
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition
- Publisher
- Charles Scribner's Sons
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1910
- Keywords
- Hunting, American Presidents
Terms of Sale
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Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Quarto
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- First Edition
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This Book’s Categories
- Politics, Government and Law Law Enforcement Political Biography
- Countries & Cultures Africa
- Countries & Cultures North America United States Americana
- History
- Nature Natural History
- Politics, Government and Law
- Travel & Exploration True Adventure
- Travel & Exploration Travel
- Sports & Games Hunting, Fishing & Shooting
- Biography & Essays Biography & Memoirs