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IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA
ON A TYPICAL ELEPHANT TRAIL IN THE FOREST
CARL E. AKELEY
IN
BRIGHTEST
AFRICA
Memorial Edition
GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC
COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, BY DOUBLE-
DAY,PAGE & COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE
COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
TO
THE MEMORY
OF
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
FOREWORD
I have written this Foreword, not after reading the manuscript of thevolume thoroughly, but after a quarter of a century acquaintance withthe experiences, thoughts, and ideals of the author himself. This isthe daybook, the diary, the narrative, the incident, and the adventureof an African sculptor and an African biographer, whose observationswe hope may be preserved in imperishable form, so that when the animallife of Africa has vanished, future generations may realize in somedegree the beauty and grandeur which the world has lost.
Sculptor and Biographer of the vanishing wild life of Africa—I do notfeel that I can adequately and truthfully characterize Carl E. Akeleybetter than in these words. I have always maintained that he was asculptor, that sculpture was his real vocation, in which taxidermy wasan incidental element. The sculptor is a biographer and an historian.Without sculpture we should know far less of the vanished greatness ofGreece than we do. Through sculpture Carl E. Akeley is recording thevanishing greatness of the natural world of Africa. We palæontologistsalone realize that in Africa the remnants of all the royal families ofthe Age of Mammals are making[Pg x] their last stand, that t