- 10 hours ago
African Safari
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Short filmTranscript
00:00:28The
00:01:17Africa is a land of vast plains like the Serengeti, and Africa is a land of delicate beauty with graceful
00:01:26creatures like the flamingos,
00:01:28and of magnificent mountains like Kirimanjaro in Tanzania, and colossal cataracts like Victoria Falls on the Zambezi.
00:01:38Victoria is twice as high as Niagara.
00:01:46Some of Africa's birds are so large you can feed a family of ten from a single ostrich egg.
00:02:02Africa has its share of weird and wonderful creatures like the chameleon, which has its eyes set in turrets.
00:02:08While one looks straight up, the other can look straight down, all at the same instant.
00:02:12That's what the boss should have in the office.
00:02:17One of the oddest creatures in Africa is the pangolin.
00:02:21Although it is a mammal, it has scales like a reptile.
00:02:27Termites are the wrecking crew of Africa.
00:02:30In one week, they can completely devour a thatched native hut, carrying the bits and pieces of grass into their
00:02:36underground fortress.
00:02:43Africa has its share of poisonous creatures like the boomslang, a deadly tree snake.
00:02:52And there is the puff adder, which literally walks on its ventral muscles.
00:02:58And there is the tsetse fly, which transmits the dreaded sleeping sickness.
00:03:03It feeds solely on blood, which it sucks from the skin of its victim.
00:03:07In this case, the arm of a Briton in Tanzania.
00:03:14After a full meal of blood, his abdomen is so distended, he can hardly fly.
00:03:19Many of 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.
00:03:31Fish are constantly dying in the jaws of crocodiles.
00:03:35A turtle dove falls prey to a fast-flying falcon.
00:03:41predators must prey on others, for without death, there would be no life.
00:03:46And here in Africa, life constantly regenerates itself.
00:03:57Young antelope are thrust into a strange and often cruel world.
00:04:03They are frequently the victims of crocodiles.
00:04:23They are also often the victims of lions.
00:04:54They are
00:05:01But large animals like the Cape Buffalo are sometimes, though not always, successful in
00:05:07beating off an attack by the King of Beasts.
00:05:34The End
00:06:03A lioness locked her jaws on the throat of this wildebeest in a vice-like grip from which
00:06:09it could not escape.
00:06:16Newborn crocodiles rarely survive beyond the first week, falling easy victim to servals,
00:06:21civets, birds of prey, and even their own parents.
00:06:29Jackals have much to fear from giant eagles.
00:06:40The Marshall Eagle is the largest and fiercest eagle on the continent of Africa.
00:06:44He has a wingspan of about seven feet, and he eats monkeys, snakes, lizards, rabbits,
00:06:49and rodents.
00:06:50He is a very powerful, very spirited bird.
00:07:16Baby leopards have much to fear from other predators until they grow big and strong 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 Banya Rwanda tribe of the former Belgian Congo, which has the
00:07:42odd custom of chipping their teeth to points because, in their estimation, it enhances their
00:07:47beauty.
00:07:48And besides, they can make out better 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 knock
00:08:01a chip off the tooth.
00:08:02It's a very painful process, and this man will have great difficulty eating or drinking
00:08:06for about three weeks.
00:08:08And believe it or not, he actually pays to have this done.
00:08:19Now, let's see what progress he made with that lower tooth.
00:08:26A bit of an argument ensues because the patient, or should I say the victim, is willing to pay
00:08:31five francs, but the dentist wants ten francs.
00:08:35This woman is very excited about the whole thing.
00:08:46Some men earn their living by capturing Africa's wild creatures for sale to zoos.
00:08:51One of them is yours truly, capturing a python in Zambia.
00:08:55The technique is to stand just outside of striking range.
00:08:58You have to watch for his teeth, he has long, sharp teeth.
00:09:02And 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 tax collector
00:09:13as a Christmas present.
00:09:19This python is larger than the first.
00:09:22The larger they are, the easier they are to catch, because the slower they strike.
00:09:25But, of course, the longer their teeth, so you have to exercise a little more care.
00:09:38This snake weighed more than 100 pounds.
00:09:45I travel across the vast expanses of Africa in my pickup truck.
00:09:49And my objectives on this trip, in addition to capturing animals for zoos, are to bring
00:09:54back specimens of a new subspecies of Egyptian cobra for the American Museum of Natural History.
00:09:59And to assist Uganda government surveyors in mapping an unexplored section of the mountains
00:10:04of 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 of navigation is a compass.
00:10:24If I head for the ridge in the center, I'll be right on course.
00:10:30I pitched my camp here in Tanzania, and one day, as I walked to my safari truck, I saw
00:10:35a startling sight.
00:10:37A full-grown cheetah.
00:10:39I ran for my rifle, because in this district, cheetah are classed as vermin, since they kill
00:10:44so many domestic animals, and the government encouraged me to collect any I found.
00:10:48But cheetah 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 classed as royal game.
00:11:14That is, you are not permitted to shoot them under any circumstances.
00:11:17But 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
00:11:24what
00:11:25wildlife this district holds in store for me.
00:11:34This rhino is standing just about where I have to walk, because there is marshy ground
00:11:39to 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 if
00:11:45I can
00:11:45help 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, I'm going to slip a cartridge
00:11:56into the chamber just in case.
00:12:01But I'm not going to shoot if I can possibly help it.
00:12:12One step closer, and he would have gotten a bullet.
00:12:16One step closer, and he would have gotten a bullet.
00:12:21Nope, you just can't go for a walk nowadays.
00:12:28Rubies, Tanzania is rich in minerals, particularly in gemstones.
00:12:34And practically every rock on this outcropping had about eight or ten rubies in it.
00:12:42These are genuine rubies.
00:12:46But I didn't have a geologist's hammer or a pick, and I couldn't very well get them
00:12:50out with my fingernails or my teeth, so they're still there.
00:13:10I got out my pocket chart and made a notation of exactly where this place is in case I decide
00:13:15to come back someday and put a road through here.
00:13:21Here in Tanzania, flies are a scourge to man and beast alike.
00:13:28Looks like a couple of Thompson's gazelles squaring off for some sort of match.
00:13:36Don't look now, but I think there's going to be a fight.
00:13:43I knew it, I knew it.
00:13:48I fought like that once, and just look what happened to me.
00:13:57By George, looks like a fight.
00:14:08Lions, a pride of six.
00:14:11One hiding up in some rocks and five out in the open.
00:14:14The best thing to do in a case like this is to walk right on past and show no sign
00:14:18of fear,
00:14:19because contrary to what most people think, lions do not normally eat people.
00:14:24If you run from a lion, he's bound to give chase.
00:14:26That is the worst possible thing you could do.
00:14:33But lions are like people.
00:14:35But lions are like people, and they all have different personalities.
00:14:37Where one will decamp, another will stand his ground.
00:14:47This third fellow seemed even less inclined to move than the first two.
00:14:54The 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.
00:15:08This is simply a demonstration to try to frighten me off.
00:15:11They don't really mean it.
00:15:15This last fellow was a downright coward.
00:15:31Guinea fowl are common here on the plains of central Africa.
00:15:35But they have many natural enemies, and they must be constantly on the alert,
00:15:39because sometimes death stalks just around the corner.
00:15:46In the uppermost branches of a tree, high overhead, sits an African hawk eagle,
00:15:51and he scans these guinea fowl very intently, because he is hungry.
00:16:05This is how he captures his prey.
00:16:14Like all birds of prey, he kills with his talons, not with his beak.
00:16:19Birds of prey use their beaks only for shredding meat into bite-sized pieces,
00:16:22and do not attack or defend themselves with their beaks.
00:16:42Vultures.
00:16:43Hundreds of vultures.
00:16:46And 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.
00:17:00But he'll be darned if he'll let anybody else have any.
00:17:06Vultures wait patiently.
00:17:09Others soar overhead.
00:17:21And the jackals wait patiently.
00:17:35Well, now it looks like he's had his fill, and the vultures wade in.
00:17:54Vultures spend more time fighting with one another than they do in getting down to eating.
00:17:58They never do seem to get along with their own kind.
00:18:04I found a baby chimpanzee.
00:18:07And at first, she was trembling with fear.
00:18:09But in a few minutes, she grabbed my jacket with her little fists,
00:18:12as if she was looking for protection from the big bad world around her.
00:18:15I guess she thought I looked like a reasonable facsimile of her mother.
00:18:19I called her Trudy, and she now lives in a zoo in America.
00:18:22At this point, she had a tummy like a beach ball,
00:18:25and a face like a dried up prune.
00:18:37She was a very clever little ape.
00:18:39Within three or four days, I taught her to come to me when I called her by name,
00:18:43which is pretty good going for a wild creature.
00:18:57Next day, her relatives paid me a social call and stole some food from my truck.
00:19:26I loaded my truck with animals for the trip to the nearest airport.
00:19:29This is a cheetah cub.
00:19:38Next, a large crate of colorful East African lovebirds, also known as Fisher's parakeets.
00:19:49And then we loaded boxes of poisonous snakes.
00:19:57I extended the range of my truck from the normal 300 miles to better than 1,000 miles
00:20:02by carrying these spare jerry cans.
00:20:18Now watch how Trudy grabs my bush jacket with her little fists.
00:20:22Once she gets hold of me like that, you just can't get her off.
00:20:25If you try, she will scream and cry like a little baby.
00:20:28And it's tough to drive with her between you and the wheel,
00:20:31but she's just got to sit right there.
00:20:36On the way, I saw some Thompson's gazelles, which are characterized by their windshield wipers in the rear.
00:20:47Their chief natural enemy is the wild dog, which gangs up in packs and runs them down.
00:20:53Another one of their natural enemies is the lion.
00:20:56It's no secret this fellow just had a full meal.
00:21:00But their fleet-footedness is the thing that saves them because they can generally outrun their predators.
00:21:08I saw many wildebeest, which were having their young about this time of year.
00:21:23The men of the village don't do this, and they think the women are absolutely mad.
00:21:29They paint their faces the same way, but this pigment lasts only about three or four days,
00:21:34so they have to go through this whole process at least twice a week.
00:21:41Little boys played strange games that I never could quite figure out.
00:21:46A unique thing about pygmies is that without exception, all the women have masculine faces.
00:22:02Then the chief showed me their favorite musical instrument, which they call a lukambi.
00:22:07It is a hollow wooden sounding board on which they have mounted flattened steel nails.
00:22:11And oddly enough, it is exactly the same sort of instrument natives use in widely scattered parts of Africa.
00:22:19I asked the pygmies if they would like to go for a ride in my truck.
00:22:23They thought this would be a great and glorious adventure.
00:22:25The whole village turned out in single file.
00:22:4360 seconds after I drove up, I had 39 pygmies on top of and inside of my truck.
00:22:48I 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.
00:23:06I just happened to have a piece of cloth I bought in Nairobi for this purpose.
00:23:11Ah, that really struck his fancy.
00:23:14Well, it's a trade. The spear is mine. The cloth is his.
00:23:18We each thought we got a bargain.
00:23:33This fellow that made the trade with me is a very bashful pygmy.
00:23:36He wants to go for a ride in the truck too, but he doesn't want to brazenly climb aboard without
00:23:41first asking my permission.
00:23:43I never saw such a polite pygmy before.
00:23:47And now we're off for an exciting ride at all of two miles per hour.
00:23:52I 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, I visited a Bantu village at the edge of the
00:24:03forest.
00:24:11It was here that I saw how they operate their old-fashioned muzzle loaders.
00:24:16They pour some black powder down the barrel.
00:24:28Slide in a paper seal.
00:24:38Then drop in a piece of lead, fashioned to the shape of a bullet.
00:24:42Whoops, time out for snuff. He can't do his work properly without snuff.
00:24:46He puts as much powder up his nose as he puts down the barrel.
00:24:54Now he cocks the hammer and puts a percussion cap on the striker base.
00:25:01Then he slowly closes the hammer down on it.
00:25:04Now 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.
00:25:22Missed by 15 feet.
00:25:25When I arrived in Uganda, I made arrangements with a game ranger to use the launch which the government put
00:25:31at his disposal.
00:25:32Because I'm searching for monitor lizards and these four-foot lizards frequent the banks of rivers in Central Africa.
00:25:39I'm now on the Victoria Nile between Lake Victoria and Lake Albert, and I'm going to scan both banks carefully
00:25:44for these giant monitors.
00:25:59On the way, I saw many of the colorful birds which are so characteristic of this part of Africa.
00:26:04Marabou storks, pelicans, Egyptian geese, darters, and cormorants.
00:26:13This hippo ran along an underwater plateau, and then suddenly, he stepped off the edge.
00:26:30A yellow-billed kite spotted a dead fish floating on the surface, and he swooped down and snatched it up
00:26:36in his talons.
00:26:40I saw many crocodiles along the banks of this river.
00:26:50Then I saw some cattle egrets landing on a mud bank.
00:26:57Uh-huh, it wasn't a mud bank at all.
00:27:00It was a herd of sleeping hippos.
00:27:02You get lots of surprises out here.
00:27:13Crocodiles often wander far from water at night, but seldom more than eight or ten feet from it during daylight
00:27:19hours.
00:27:23They have the odd custom of sleeping with their mouths wide open.
00:27:28Notice all the flies in this fellow's mouth.
00:27:33Boy, I hope those flies don't drown.
00:27:40Then I saw some hippos kissing.
00:27:44And a couple play-fighting.
00:27:57Monitor lizards, just what I was looking for.
00:28:00They're digging in a hole in the sandbank for turtle eggs.
00:28:03Monitors like eggs of all kinds.
00:28:05Birds eggs, crocodile eggs, and turtle eggs.
00:28:08And when they find one, they gulp it down voraciously.
00:28:22I disembarked at a landing that the game ranger had erected nearby,
00:28:26and I instructed the crew to return before nightfall with my natives and my camping gear.
00:28:31Meanwhile, I'm going to survey this area for a campsite,
00:28:34which will serve as a base for capturing these giant lizards.
00:28:46The next morning, while my camp was under construction, I went out for a walk.
00:28:50And on what was practically my front lawn, there was a monitor.
00:29:15I 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,
00:29:23and you must be very careful how you grab him not to lose a finger.
00:29:42Well, now it's all over but to grab him by the head,
00:29:45but this is easier said than done because he's not going to cooperate one bit.
00:29:52This is what is known as having a lizard by the tail.
00:30:08I packed him in a comfortable wooden crate,
00:30:10and sent him off by air express to my animal agent in America.
00:30:20I packed my animals and my gear in my truck,
00:30:22and I headed for the Serengeti plains of Tanzania.
00:30:25.
00:30:28.
00:30:52I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
00:30:58I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
00:31:56I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
00:32:26I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
00:32:57Adult males weigh about 450 pounds, adult females about 350 pounds.
00:33:28Music
00:33:31Animals can tell when lions are out to make a kill, and when they know that they're not, they will
00:33:37stand by and let one pass very closely.
00:33:39It's sort of a sixth sense that animals have that lets them know this.
00:33:43But these wildebeest and zebra know that this old boy is up to no good, so they give him a
00:33:47wide berth.
00:33:48Actually, he is frightening them to a point downwind where the lionesses are lying in wait with their cubs,
00:33:54because it is the lionesses that usually do the killing for a pride, not the males.
00:33:59Males will condescend to help, but they leave the dirty work up to the ladies, pretty much as in the
00:34:04case of human beings.
00:34:08There is not a tree for miles around, and it's 110 degrees in the shade.
00:34:27Boy, I wish that old man would hurry up and bring home the bacon.
00:34:31So he accommodates and shifts into second.
00:34:39Now he shifts into high, and this ostrich decides this is no place for him.
00:34:46And these two hartebeasts say, boy, let's get out of here.
00:34:50This is no place for us.
00:34:55Music
00:35:10In less than an hour, there is nothing left but skin and bones.
00:35:14Lions know what it is to go hungry.
00:35:16Sometimes they do without meat for four or five days.
00:35:19So when they have a kill, they make the most of it while it's available.
00:35:22They literally gorge themselves, leaving nothing behind if they can possibly help it.
00:35:33Now I headed north, and on the way I crossed an improvised log bridge.
00:35:38The unsettling thing about these bridges is that you never know what load they're built to withstand
00:35:43until you get to the other side.
00:35:45Then it might be too late.
00:35:48On the way, I saw one of the most fabulous sights in all of Africa.
00:35:54Colombo Falls, the highest waterfall on the continent, twice as high as Victoria, a 720-foot drop.
00:36:01It's situated way down at the southern tip of Lake Tanzania on the Tanzania-Zambia border.
00:36:17This waterfall is so high, the entire river atomizes before it strikes bottom.
00:36:22So it's a perfectly silent waterfall.
00:36:25There's no thunder here whatsoever.
00:36:27Its name, Colombo, means greatest of the great in the local vernacular.
00:36:48Zebras have a few pleasures in life, but this is one of them.
00:36:58On the way, I discovered that I had several broken spring blades,
00:37:01and I took time out to apply homemade steel clamps.
00:37:04During the years that this safari lasted, I had 19 broken spring blades and 15 flat tires.
00:37:10I brought this truck to Africa on a freighter and sold it in Cape Town a few years later.
00:37:14It is now owned by a man in the suburbs who uses it for selling vegetables.
00:37:24These natives really were a great help.
00:37:26I don't know what I would have done without them.
00:37:54I made a base camp here, and one day as I returned from a hunt,
00:37:57I heard a very strange sound.
00:38:04Two young leopards.
00:38:12I took a quick look around for mother leopard,
00:38:14because she would be very displeased if she knew I was going to adopt her cubs.
00:38:18They were about three weeks old and weighed two pounds apiece.
00:38:21I called them Sputnik and Mutnik.
00:38:30As far as I know, mother leopard never did follow me back to camp.
00:38:34At least I never saw her.
00:38:36They were so tiny, they just didn't know what fear was.
00:38:40They are now full grown, and they live in the zoo in Rochester, New York.
00:38:49I had some dehydrated milk already prepared for my baby antelope,
00:38:53and of course I always carry baby bottles with me when I'm on safari.
00:38:56They're one of the most useful items of equipment.
00:39:14Oh, mother leopard must have been away a long, long time.
00:39:18I fed them up on calcium gluconate, cod liver oil, vitamins, milk, and meat,
00:39:22and they doubled their weight in a month.
00:39:25Leopards are easy to raise, and they make wonderful pets.
00:39:36One day as they were playing at my feet, one of my natives shouted.
00:39:41Buena, buena, mamba.
00:39:44And there he was, a black mamba, the fastest and deadliest snake in Africa.
00:39:51I 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.
00:39:58The poison of a mamba acts very much like the poison of a cobra,
00:40:02paralyzing the nerve centers of the body,
00:40:04but it acts much more quickly than cobra venom.
00:40:09I had no serum for the bite of a mamba,
00:40:11so I had to be very careful how I handled it.
00:40:21Mambas have the characteristic of traveling with their heads held high above the ground,
00:40:25which makes it very difficult to pin them down.
00:40:36When a mamba is angry, he flattens his neck.
00:40:48There, now I have his head pinned down.
00:40:54And now it's all over but to pick him up and pop him into a sack and send him by
00:40:58air to America.
00:40:59He is perfectly uninjured and in excellent condition,
00:41:02and he measured exactly eight feet long.
00:41:07Mambas are long, thin, graceful snakes, and they have real poise.
00:41:18But life on safari has its more prosaic moments.
00:41:21For example, sometimes you have to hang up your pajamas.
00:41:25And there are camp pets that require attention from time to time.
00:41:30Natives come to me constantly looking for medical care,
00:41:33like this Maasai tribesman who has a bad eye infection.
00:41:36These tribal natives look upon all Europeans
00:41:39camped in remote bush country as doctors.
00:41:43They believe we all have magical powers,
00:41:46and every day I have at least three or four natives coming to me
00:41:49looking for medical care.
00:41:55I gave him some penicillin capsules and a cup of water.
00:41:58But if you remember, these Maasai drink about as much water as a Frenchman,
00:42:02so I had a devil of a time getting him to swallow these capsules.
00:42:17Notice how reluctant he is about the whole thing.
00:42:22Nope, he doesn't think much of that drink.
00:42:30I asked this fine-looking tribesman to come back the next morning
00:42:34for some more penicillin.
00:42:35His trouble was cleared up in one week.
00:42:43There are lots of chores to take care of around camp.
00:42:46My baby reed buck needed her bottle every four or five hours.
00:42:58And Trudy whooped and hollered like a little girl looking for attention.
00:43:04And I had to take time out occasionally for a bath for myself.
00:43:07And out here, there was such a water shortage
00:43:09that I had to bathe in dishwater and save the water after the bath.
00:43:16Meanwhile, Sputnik and Mutnik fought over last night's kudu bone.
00:43:25Leopards grow very fast, and in just seven months,
00:43:28these leopards grew to be a real armful.
00:43:30But chimps don't grow nearly as fast as leopards,
00:43:33and every time I took these beasts out of the compound,
00:43:36Trudy ran for the truck.
00:43:43She wanted no part of these animals anymore.
00:43:48Old Sputnik loved to play roughhouse,
00:43:50and you just couldn't be too rough with him.
00:43:52You could drop him and kick him and step on him
00:43:54right up to the point of breaking his ribs,
00:43:56and he'd come back for more.
00:43:57He loved it.
00:43:59But the thing he loved the best
00:44:00was to be laid on his back and tickled.
00:44:16Sputnik had a passion for going for the back of my neck.
00:44:19After I'd played roughhouse with him,
00:44:21the back of my neck was scratched and bleeding,
00:44:23but of course, it was all in fun.
00:44:38Sputnik weighed about 75 pounds at this point.
00:44:46Boy, I wish he'd leave the back of my neck alone.
00:45:03Sputnik's favorite playmate was Jackie,
00:45:05a dog that belonged to a professional hunter in Livingston.
00:45:08And although they were about the same size and weight,
00:45:11you can see that nature intended them
00:45:13for entirely different functions
00:45:14by the difference in the size of their paws.
00:45:17These two fellows were fast friends.
00:45:19They really loved each other.
00:45:27These are two lions in the Springs Game Reserve
00:45:30in the Transvaal.
00:45:31I included these pictures to show
00:45:33the long side of Sputnik and Mutnik.
00:45:35These two fellows had absolutely no manners whatsoever.
00:45:38They are not my lions.
00:45:40I'm just visiting them.
00:45:48Each time I played with these beasts,
00:45:50it cost me a shirt, a pair of pants, and a bit of hide.
00:46:08There's the beginning of the end of my shirt.
00:46:24One day, a little boy came running to my camp
00:46:27and told me that a native in the nearby village
00:46:29had been bitten by a cobra a few hours before.
00:46:36I grabbed my hypodermic syringe and serum,
00:46:39and I followed him.
00:46:56But I was too late.
00:47:09I heard a native woman shout noha,
00:47:11which in the Selozi language means snake.
00:47:17It was an Egyptian cobra.
00:47:19I couldn't find a stick long enough to pin him down with,
00:47:22so I'll use a twig
00:47:23and capture him by distracting his attention with the kerchief
00:47:26while I grab his jaws from behind with the other hand.
00:47:29He is a very deadly snake,
00:47:31and I've got to be certain of my aim.
00:47:34This is my helper.
00:47:36I don't think I can't succeed.
00:47:47I don't think I'm a liar.
00:47:50I don't think I'm a creep
00:48:02but I think I need to make her
00:48:02in the middle.
00:48:02The music chemistry
00:48:03is a rare
00:48:03and nitrous
00:48:18This is the snake the American Museum of Natural History was looking for.
00:48:22They believe that Egyptian cobras from this district are a new subspecies, so I sent him
00:48:27off to the museum by air express.
00:48:38A 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.
00:48:47I asked this Bushman to tell me how he collected honey in the forest, and I took it down in
00:48:51my tape recorder.
00:48:58And then, I played it back to him.
00:49:09He refused to believe that that was his own voice.
00:49:12When it was all over, he told me that the little man in the black box said exactly the same
00:49:16thing the same way he did.
00:49:24After recording his voice for posterity, I gave him some stainless steel mirrors and inexpensive
00:49:29knives.
00:49:30Then I had a chat with the Induna or local chief.
00:49:34He had a sad story to tell me.
00:49:36He said that a lion had killed their hunting dogs.
00:49:38This was a real catastrophe for them, because they depended upon their dogs to help them
00:49:43get fresh meat.
00:49:44He asked me if I would shoot the lion.
00:49:47I promised I would look for him the next day and shoot him if possible.
00:49:54I started out the next morning with my two best Bantu trackers from the carcass of one
00:49:59of the dogs, which showed lots of fresh lion tracks.
00:50:02Judging by the size of the tracks, he was a very large lion indeed, and judging by the
00:50:07freshness, he was very close.
00:50:09We knew we would come upon him in a matter of minutes.
00:50:38Must have wounded him badly.
00:50:41In Diobwana, Banduki Pigasimba, which in Swahili means Yesbwana, the gun did strike the lion.
00:50:56Would you like to thank you for the blessing of him?
00:52:04After me, George.
00:52:18The third shot went through his spine and he died just as he struck me.
00:52:22He was a full-grown male that weighed about 450 pounds.
00:52:26I asked my native to go to the nearest village and bring back a lot of others to help carry
00:52:30this beast back to the camp for skinning.
00:52:37That African who is waving his arms in the foreground was accidentally shot and killed the next day by another
00:52:43native with the same rifle that shot that lion.
00:52:45It is a good object lesson in the fact that you can never be too careful in the handling of
00:52:50firearms.
00:52:50It is a good object.
00:53:18Then I headed for Fort Portal, Uganda, where I had been invited by the government to witness the rare event
00:53:25of exploration in modern times.
00:53:29There is a huge marketplace here for natives.
00:53:32Fort Portal is the traditional jumping-off point for expeditions up the Mountains of the Moon, otherwise known as the
00:53:38Ruanzori Range.
00:53:38And 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 Moon to map
00:53:47the upper reaches of the Nyamagosani River,
00:53:50which has never been seen or mapped above the 7,000-foot level before.
00:53:54He explained that the river valley is constantly shrouded in clouds, and aerial photos have shown nothing of it because
00:54:01of the solid cloud coverage.
00:54:02According to the government, no one, to their knowledge, has ever set foot in that river valley above the 7
00:54:08,000-foot level before.
00:54:11Three weeks later, we started out at the north end of Lake Edward with 50 African porters.
00:54:17The first order of business was a negotiation over wages, and this consumed exactly two hours.
00:54:32After compromising on a wage, we got together the food for the porters.
00:54:37We had 150 pounds of dried hippo meat, 600 pounds of peanuts, 1,200 pounds of cassava flour, and a
00:54:44live goat and sheep to provide fresh meat.
00:54:48We doled out blankets because where we're going, the altitude is high and the temperature is low.
00:54:54Ruan Zori is higher than any of the Alps in Europe.
00:54:56The summit is at 16,800 feet above sea level, and there's ice at the top year-round.
00:55:03Headloads were weighed out at 50 pounds apiece.
00:55:06We have a 50-mile walk ahead of us because we're crossing the range in the long direction from south
00:55:11to north.
00:55:23Now starts a long, hard, three-week climb, which cost us the life of one man before it was finished.
00:55:33Cheetah wandered in off the plains to the foothills of Ruan Zori.
00:55:39And it was here that we saw more than a dozen different kinds of lizards.
00:55:43The streams were numbingly cold because they were the runoff from glaciers.
00:55:59We saw lots of game in the rainforest on the approach.
00:56:06Even a few pythons.
00:56:11Soon we left far below us the villages from which our Bakonjo tribesmen came.
00:56:17We picked these Bakonjo because they live in the foothills and are accustomed to carrying heavy loads up steep slopes.
00:56:24They are tough, wiry Africans.
00:56:28The chimps that we saw along the way were talking to each other in chimpanese.
00:56:36We chopped firewood at the end of the seventh day at an elevation of about 7,000 feet.
00:56:43Some of us camped in a clearing on the right.
00:56:52Some of our men caught a tree hyrax in a snare and they carved it up for supper that night.
00:57:17It was here that we saw the typical creeping, crawling creatures so characteristic of this part of Africa.
00:57:23Including the safari ant, the most insidious insect in all of Africa, bar none.
00:57:29At the end of the eighth day, our natives collected moss for mattresses.
00:57:36Then they broke out their cassava flower, which is made by grinding the roots of the manioc tree.
00:57:41This is their staple diet.
00:57:42They mix it with water, stir it over a fire, and roll it into little balls and pop it into
00:57:47their mouths.
00:57:49And it tastes...
00:57:51terrible.
00:58:01terrible.
00:58:03But they love it.
00:58:06They also had mutton for the evening meal.
00:58:12We didn't go much for the cassava flower, so we broke out some tin goods.
00:58:21The man on the left is the head of the Department of Lands and Surveys for the Uganda government.
00:58:37And this is a British mountain climber who was invited to guide us across the ice fields.
00:58:42He's had considerable experience climbing the Himalayas of Tibet.
00:58:46And this seedy looking character is yours truly.
00:58:53After a satisfying meal, the boys fashioned pipes from long stem jungle plants.
00:59:09And then the clouds rolled in.
00:59:12Ruan Zori is almost constantly shrouded in clouds.
00:59:20In a few minutes, the visibility dropped to a few yards and it was cold and clammy.
00:59:25This is typical Ruan Zori weather.
00:59:41Next morning, we got up early.
00:59:45We took sightings on the elevations of nearby peaks and found in many instances the latest government charts were in
00:59:51error.
00:59:55And now the temperature dropped close to the freezing point.
01:00:01There is the valley through which the government suspects the Nyamagosani River flows.
01:00:06They're not sure because it has never been seen above the 7,000 foot level before and we are much
01:00:11higher than that now.
01:00:12As usual, it is shrouded in heavy mist.
01:00:16And there is the source of that river at 13,500 feet above sea level.
01:00:21This is the first time it has ever been seen or filmed.
01:00:25The river had an eerie appearance because it was so heavily shrouded in mist.
01:00:29We wanted to map the upper reaches of this river, but we were defeated by logistics because we had a
01:00:34seven-day march to a point where an advanced 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 out
01:00:45the very next day if we were to keep from running out of food.
01:00:48This happened because our porters were eating at a higher rate than we had calculated on.
01:00:58The river flowed through a forest which was festooned with hanging moss.
01:01:13We saw a placid pool at the 12,000 foot level.
01:01:17We checked our charts for the best approach to the rock divide which separates us from the snow peaks, which
01:01:23is where the advanced party had cashed away the food.
01:01:26And now starts the hardest, coldest part of the climb.
01:01:36It rained for 17 days out of the three weeks, which made the rocks doubly slippery and treacherous.
01:01:47All of our gear was constantly soaking because of the incessant rain and because the sun never shone long enough
01:01:53for us to dry it out.
01:01:54When the temperature dropped below freezing, we found we often had ice in the tent in the mornings.
01:01:59One of the men in the advanced party died of pneumonia four days after they crossed the tree line.
01:02:04He was a 31-year-old Briton.
01:02:17This is the first time in my life that I had ever climbed a really big mountain, and it will
01:02:21probably be the last.
01:02:29We saw a lake which was discovered two years previously, but which remained unnamed.
01:02:34It is the policy of the Uganda government to name new geographical features after local names.
01:02:39Our guide said he calls it Kachopi.
01:02:42Henceforth, on all government charts, this will be known as Lake Kachopi.
01:02:47This is the top of the rock divide which separates us from the snow peaks.
01:03:11And there at the foot of this glacier are two tiny huts.
01:03:14In one of these, the advanced party cashed away food and left behind one of their men who's been awaiting
01:03:20our arrival for one week.
01:03:30Needless to say, he was very pleased to see us.
01:03:34He is a young Oxford graduate who is now in the government service in Tanzania.
01:03:41He said that he had taken sightings on the elevation and azimuths of nearby peaks and found many errors in
01:03:47the latest government charts just as we had.
01:03:50It's not hard to realize when you consider that Ruan Zori was discovered less than 100 years ago,
01:03:55and a good deal of the upper reaches still remain incompletely manned.
01:04:04After a warm meal in his hut, we started out across the ice fields, which, believe it or not, are
01:04:09right on the equator.
01:04:11There is ice up here all year round.
01:04:13We are at the top of Stanley Mountain, at the very summit of the Mountains of the Moon,
01:04:17with Uganda on our left and the Congo on our right.
01:04:25These glaciers are actually rivers of ice.
01:04:40Our progress here dropped to less than one half mile per day, not only because of the rarefied air,
01:04:46but because of the steepness of some of the glaciers that we had to cross.
01:04:51There were 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.
01:05:01These are the very first drops of the White Nile from a glacier melting at the top of Ruan Zori.
01:05:06These drops join together with the drops from other glaciers to form tiny rivulets which race down the rocky faces.
01:05:12These rivulets join together to form little streams that run through the vegetation a few thousand feet below.
01:05:19And the streams combine to form a real river which ultimately becomes the mighty Nile of Egypt.
01:05:29At this point, the entire volume of the Nile surges through a narrow cleft of rock only 19 feet wide
01:05:35as it races toward Lake Albert.
01:05:38There is tremendous thunder and power in this tiny little chasm.
01:05:47So it is here on the roof of Africa that the Nile is born nearly 4,000 miles from its
01:05:53mouth in the Mediterranean.
01:05:56From rivers of ice to mountains of fire.
01:06:00Less than 100 miles from Ruan Zori, a volcano was in full eruption.
01:06:05I asked the owner of a light plane if he would fly me over it.
01:06:08He said he would be pleased to as he'd seen the smoke from the eruption a few days before
01:06:12and was just as curious to see it at close range as I was.
01:06:15This volcano was born from a perfectly flat forest when a fissure suddenly opened up in the ground and molten
01:06:22lava flew skyward.
01:06:23It was one of the rare instances in recorded times that a volcano was born from a perfectly flat surface.
01:06:43We saw great destruction to the forest below us as a result of the lava flows.
01:06:49A river of molten lava flowed for 16 miles through the forest causing the destruction of thousands of acres of
01:06:56woodland.
01:06:57Those patches of white are steam resulting from the rain that's falling now vaporizing when it strikes the hot lava.
01:07:33We felt intense heat inside the cockpit on the side facing the eruption.
01:07:55We felt intense heat inside the cockpit on the side facing the eruption.
01:08:00This is how the sun looked through the column of steam coming out of the crater.
01:08:05Back down on the ground I hired four Congolese to carry my photo and camping gear and we went on
01:08:11a foot safari to get a closer look.
01:08:13The acid fallout from the crater killed all the vegetation for a radius of 20 miles.
01:08:18The trees are completely denuded of their leaves from the acid fallout.
01:08:25The lava fields were very, very hot and we had to step lively.
01:08:42It was raining and when the rain struck the hot lava it vaporized instantly cutting our visibility down to a
01:08:48few yards.
01:08:49At times we didn't know whether we were walking toward the volcano or away from it.
01:08:53The only way we could tell was by homing in on the tremendous roar and sometimes this was very deceptive.
01:09:03We had to call to each other constantly to keep from being separated and in spite of that one of
01:09:08my natives was lost for more than an hour.
01:09:14When the rain stopped the visibility cleared and we found this kingfisher which apparently died from the intense gases coming
01:09:20out of the crater.
01:09:22Now we were walking across scoriaceous lava, that is huge blocks of very jagged lava which is sharp as glass.
01:09:29And you must be very careful how you walk across it not to let the calves of your legs rub
01:09:33against it or it would cut them to ribbons.
01:09:45When we were within half a mile of the eruption we were walking on about 14 inches of porous black
01:09:51ash which crunched audibly as we stepped across it.
01:09:54Some of this light black ash was being carried more than 20 miles away by the winds aloft.
01:10:02Molten lava flowed around tree trunks and the intense heat consumed the lower part of the trunk leaving gaping holes
01:10:08and you had to be very careful not to step in one of these.
01:10:15The temperature of molten lava is about 2500 degrees Fahrenheit or about the same as molten steel.
01:10:28I threw a rock in this river of molten lava and it bounced and floated because it was the same
01:10:33density as the river itself.
01:10:45There were huge boulders floating in the river, boulders as large as automobiles.
01:11:12This lava is coming from about 30 miles below the earth's surface.
01:11:24This river is 100 feet wide and it is flowing through the west branch of the Great Rift Valley in
01:11:30the eastern part of the Congo in Kivu province.
01:11:34My natives were deathly afraid of this volcano not only for obvious reasons but because they were so steeped in
01:11:40superstition they thought this was their fire god and they thought that if they got too close he would recognize
01:11:45their faces.
01:11:47So I had to pay them a bonus to get them up this close.
01:12:08In spite of the bonus they moaned and groaned and groused like a bunch of GIs the whole trip.
01:12:13You never heard so many tales of woe from so few men before in your life.
01:12:19In spots hydrogen gas seeped to the surface and burned and when hydrogen burns it forms water vapor and this
01:12:26is one of the rare examples of newborn water on the face of the earth.
01:12:39So I had to take two of the mountains.
01:12:43I had to see them that some of the mountains near the sky in the bare way.
01:12:46But for some of my rivers near the past, I was used to be very quiet.
01:12:51I was on the west side of the boat in the lake.
01:12:58It was a excellent weather Adrienne and it was a lovely big time to get ready for this.
01:12:59I don't know.
01:13:34This volcano erupted continuously for five months, and then, after causing destruction
01:13:39to thousands of acres of woodland, the eruption slackened.
01:13:48And then I could look right down into the throat and see the boiling, seething lake of molten
01:13:52lava at the very bottom.
01:13:55I came to Africa in a quest for high adventure, and now I was leaving it with the feeling
01:14:00that I had found it indeed, and more than a fair share for one man.
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