1909 CE • Africa
"The hunter who wanders through these lands sees sights which ever afterward remain fixed in his mind. He sees the monstrous river-horse snorting and plunging beside the boat; the giraffe looking over the tree tops at the nearing horseman; the ostrich fleeing at a speed that none may rival; the snarling leopard and coiled python, with their lethal beauty; the zebras, barking in the moonlight, as the laden caravan passes on its night march through a thirsty land. In after years there shall come to him memories of the lion's charge; of the gray bulk of the elephant, close at hand in the sombre woodland; of the buffalo, his sullen eyes lowering from under his helmet of horn ; of the rhinoceros, truculent and stupid, standing in the bright sunlight on the empty plain."
Theodore Roosevelt, African Game Trails (New York, NY: Scribner, 1910), viii-ix.
Image: Kenya Colony. Rift Valley and en Route to Nairobi. Sunset Scene Along the Escarpment, Matson Photo Service, 1936, courtesy of The Library of Congress, LC-M33- 8417.
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