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00:00:30Wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-we
00:01:00Wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee
00:01:10Africa is a land of
00:01:20vast plains like the Serengeti,
00:01:23and Africa is a land of delicate beauty with graceful
00:01:26creatures like the flamingos, and of magnificent mountains like Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and
00:01:34colossal 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
00:01:51egg.
00:02:03Africa has its share of weird and wonderful creatures like the chameleon, which has its
00:02:07eyes set in turrets.
00:02:09While one looks straight up, the other can look straight down, all at the same instant.
00:02:13That's what the boss should have in the office.
00:02:18One of the oddest creatures in Africa is the pangolin.
00:02:21Although it is a mammal, it has scales like a reptile.
00:02:28Termites are the wrecking crew of Africa.
00:02:30In one week, they can completely devour a thatched native hut, carrying the bits and
00:02:35pieces of grass into their underground fortress.
00:02:43Africa has its share of poisonous creatures like the boomslang, a deadly tree snake.
00:02:53And there is the puff adder, which literally walks on its ventral muscles.
00:02:59And there is the tsetse fly, which transmits the dreaded sleeping sickness.
00:03:04It feeds solely on blood, which it sucks from the skin of its victim, in this case the arm
00:03:08of a Briton in Tanzania.
00:03:14After a full meal of blood, his abdomen is so distended he can hardly fly.
00:03:20Many of Africa's plants are equipped with defensive devices to help them survive.
00:03:28But some of Africa's creatures lose in a conflict for survival.
00:03:32Fish are constantly dying in the jaws of crocodiles.
00:03:36A turtle dove falls prey to a fast-flying falcon.
00:03:42Predators must prey on others, for without death, there would be no life.
00:03:47And 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.
00:04:24They are also often the victims of lions.
00:04:39But large animals, like the Cape buffalo, are sometimes, though not always, successful
00:05:07in beating off an attack by the king of beasts.
00:05:37A lioness locked her jaws on the throat of this wildebeest in a violent battle.
00:06:06She caught this wildebeest in a vice-like grip, from which it 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.
00:06:39The marshal 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, and rodents.
00:06:51He is a very powerful, very spirited bird.
00:07:17Leopards 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 Banyaruanda tribe of the former Belgian Congo,
00:07:41which has the odd custom of chipping their teeth to points,
00:07:45because in their estimation, it enhances their beauty.
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 a chip off the tooth.
00:08:02It's a very painful process, and this man will have great difficulty eating or drinking for about three weeks.
00:08:08Believe 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 five francs, but the dentist wants ten francs.
00:08:35This woman is very excited about the whole thing.
00:08:45Some 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 as 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.
00:09:26And 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,
00:09:53are to bring back 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 of the Moon
00:10:05and to get a taste of high adventure in the years that lay ahead.
00:10:14I 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 a startling sight.
00:10:38A full-grown cheetah.
00:10:40I picked up a rifle because in this district, cheetah are classed as vermin since they kill so many domestic animals
00:10:45and the government encouraged me to collect any I found.
00:10:49But cheetah are the fastest four-legged animals in the world.
00:11:05Chances are this fellow is half a mile away by now.
00:11:10In most countries and colonies of Africa, cheetah are classed as royal game.
00:11:15That is, you are not permitted to shoot them under any circumstances.
00:11:18But 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
00:11:24and see what wildlife 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 to 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 I can help it
00:11:46since 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,
00:11:55I'm going to slip a cartridge into the chamber just in case.
00:12:02I'm not going to shoot if I can possibly help it.
00:12:12One step closer and he would have gotten a bullet.
00:12:22Nope, you just can't go for a walk nowadays.
00:12:29Tanzania 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,
00:12:49and I couldn't very well get them out 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
00:13:14in case I decide to 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.
00:13:58By George, looks like a fight.
00:14:08Lions, a pride of six, one 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 of fear,
00:14:19because contrary to what most people think, lions do not normally eat people.
00:14:23If 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.
00:14:35They 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,
00:15:37and they must be constantly on the alert because sometimes death stalks just around the corner.
00:15:47In 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.
00:16:18Birds of prey use their beaks only for shredding meat into bite-sized pieces
00:16:23and do not attack or defend themselves with their beaks.
00:16:42Vultures, hundreds of vultures.
00:16:46And as I look below, I see the cause of it.
00:16:50The hyena is dragging a wildebeest carcass through the water.
00:16:54He'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,
00:17:01but 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, and 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 and 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.
00:18:57The next 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.
00:19:30This 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.
00:20:37On the way I saw some Thompson's gazelles,
00:20:39which 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.
00:20:54Another one of their natural enemies is the lion.
00:20:57It's no secret this fellow just had a full meal.
00:21:00But their fleet-footedness is the thing that saves them
00:21:03because they can generally outrun their predators.
00:21:09This is a wildebeest, which we're 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
00:22:14natives 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.
00:22:43Sixty seconds after I drove up, I had 39 pygmies on top of and inside of my truck.
00:22:49The 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.
00:23:11Aha, 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,
00:23:38but he doesn't want to brazenly climb aboard without first 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.
00:23:56After living with these tiny people for a few weeks,
00:23:59I visited a Bantu village at the edge of the forest.
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,
00:24:37then drop in a piece of lead fashioned to the shape of a bullet.
00:24:41Whoops, 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
00:25:29to use the launch which the government put at his disposal
00:25:32because I'm searching for monitor lizards
00:25:34and these four-foot lizards frequent the banks of rivers in Central Africa.
00:25:38I'm now on the Victoria Nile between Lake Victoria and Lake Albert
00:25:42and I'm going to scan both banks carefully for 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.
00:26:31A shallow-billed kite spotted a dead fish floating on the surface
00:26:34and he swooped down and snatched it up in 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.
00:26:57Aha, 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
00:27:16but seldom more than eight or ten feet from it during daylight hours.
00:27:24They have the odd custom of sleeping with their mouths wide open.
00:27:28Notice all the flies in this fellow's mouth.
00:27:34Boy, I hope those flies don't drown.
00:27:41I saw some hippos kissing and a couple play fighting.
00:27:57Monitor lizards, just what I was looking for.
00:28:00They're digging in a hole in the sand bank for turtle eggs.
00:28:03Monitors like eggs of all kinds, bird's 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.
00:29:45This 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.
00:30:52At about this time of the year
00:31:19lionesses are having their young on the Serengeti plains.
00:31:22They usually have three or four cubs to a litter
00:31:25and stay with them for about two years
00:31:27to protect them from danger when they're tiny
00:31:29and to teach them the fine art of hunting.
00:31:32Lion cubs don't know all the fine points of stalking their prey by instinct.
00:31:36They have to learn these through long hard hours of instruction from their mother.
00:31:41If they make a mistake they get cuffed good and hard
00:31:43and they learn mighty fast.
00:31:51Lions show real affection for one another
00:31:53pretty much as in the case of human beings.
00:31:55They have a very closely knit family life.
00:32:03But when a lioness has her young
00:32:05she is usually in a very nasty protective disposition
00:32:08and this is no time to disturb her or to get too close.
00:32:14But she is very patient and accommodating toward her cubs.
00:32:18She is literally a mobile milk bar out here in the hot dusty plains of Tanzania.
00:32:25A unique thing about lionesses is that they will nurse cubs
00:32:28from another litter besides their own.
00:32:30They never cared less whose cubs they are.
00:32:32For example, here you'll see that one cub is much larger than the others
00:32:36which shows that this lioness is babysitting for another lioness
00:32:40who's gone off hunting.
00:32:41Sort of a cooperative society.
00:32:46Yep, life is one big bowl of cherries when you're a lion cub.
00:32:50Ma and Pa do all the work and you have all the fun.
00:32:53These cubs will be full grown lions in less than three years.
00:32:57Adult males weigh about 450 pounds.
00:33:00Adult females about 350 pounds.
00:33:28Animals can tell when lions are out to make a kill
00:33:32and when they know that they're not,
00:33:34they will stand by and let one pass very closely.
00:33:37It's sort of a sixth sense that animals have that lets them know this.
00:33:41But these wildebeest and zebra know that this old boy is up to no good
00:33:44so they give him a wide berth.
00:33:46Actually, he is frightening them to a point downwind
00:33:49where the lionesses are lying in wait with their cubs
00:33:52because it is the lionesses that usually do the killing
00:33:56for a pride, not the males.
00:33:58Males will condescend to help,
00:34:00but they leave the dirty work up to the ladies,
00:34:03pretty much as in the case of human beings.
00:34:06There is not a tree for miles around
00:34:09and it's 110 degrees in the shade.
00:34:26Boy, I wish that old man would hurry up and bring home the bacon.
00:34:30So he accommodates and shifts into second.
00:34:38Now he shifts into high
00:34:41and this ostrich decides this is no place for him.
00:34:45And these two hardebeest say, boy, let's get out of here.
00:34:49This is no place for us.
00:34:56In less than an hour,
00:34:59there is nothing left but skin and bones.
00:35:02Lions know what it is to go hungry.
00:35:05Sometimes they do without meat for 4 or 5 days.
00:35:08So when they have a kill,
00:35:11they make the most of it while it's available.
00:35:14They literally gorge themselves,
00:35:17leaving nothing to eat for the rest of the day.
00:35:20They're not hungry,
00:35:23they literally gorge themselves,
00:35:26leaving nothing behind if they can possibly help it.
00:35:33Now I headed north
00:35:36and on the way I crossed an improvised log bridge.
00:35:39The unsettling thing about these bridges
00:35:42is that you never know what load they're built to withstand
00:35:45until you get to the other side.
00:35:48Then it might be too late.
00:35:52Colombo Falls,
00:35:55the highest waterfall on the continent,
00:35:58twice as high as Victoria, a 720-foot drop.
00:36:01It's situated way down at the southern tip of Lake Tanzania
00:36:04on the Tanzania-Zambia border.
00:36:16This waterfall is so high,
00:36:19the entire river atomizes before it strikes bottom,
00:36:22so it's a perfectly silent waterfall.
00:36:25There's no thunder here whatsoever.
00:36:28Its name Colombo means greatest of the great
00:36:31in the local vernacular.
00:36:35Zebras have few pleasures in life,
00:36:38but this is one of them.
00:36:46On the way I discovered
00:36:49that I had several broken spring blades
00:36:52and I took time out to apply homemade steel clamps.
00:36:55They're made of steel,
00:36:58but they don't last long.
00:37:01During the years that this safari lasted,
00:37:04I had 19 broken spring blades and 15 flat tires.
00:37:07I brought this truck to Africa on a freighter
00:37:10and sold it in Cape Town a few years later.
00:37:13It is now owned by a man in the suburbs
00:37:16who uses it for selling vegetables.
00:37:22These natives really were a great help.
00:37:25I don't know what I would have done without them.
00:37:31I made a base camp here,
00:37:34and one day as I returned from a hunt,
00:37:37I heard a very strange sound.
00:37:40It was a baby goat.
00:37:43It was a baby goat.
00:37:46It was a baby goat.
00:37:49It was a baby goat.
00:37:52It was a baby goat.
00:37:55It was a baby goat.
00:37:58I heard a strange sound.
00:38:04Two young leopards.
00:38:11I took a quick look around for mother leopard
00:38:14because she would be very displeased
00:38:17if she knew I was going to adopt her cubs.
00:38:20They were about 3 weeks old and weighed 2 pounds apiece.
00:38:23I called them Sputnik and Mutnik.
00:38:29As far as I know,
00:38:32mother leopard never did follow me back to camp.
00:38:35At least I never saw her.
00:38:38They were so tiny,
00:38:41they just didn't know what fear was.
00:38:44They are now full grown
00:38:47and they live in the zoo in Rochester, New York.
00:38:50I had some dehydrated milk
00:38:53already prepared for my baby antelope,
00:38:56but they are one of the most useful items of equipment.
00:39:14Mother leopard must have been away a long, long time.
00:39:17I fed them up on calcium gluconate,
00:39:20cod liver oil, vitamins, milk and meat
00:39:23and doubled their weight in a month.
00:39:26Leopards are easy to raise and they make wonderful pets.
00:39:35One day as they were playing at my feet,
00:39:38one of my natives shouted,
00:39:41Buena, Buena, Mamba!
00:39:44And there he was, a black mamba,
00:39:47the fastest and deadliest snake in Africa.
00:39:51I ran for my snake stick
00:39:54because these snakes are highly sought after by zoos in America
00:39:57and I'm going to try to capture him alive.
00:40:00The poison of a mamba acts very much like the poison of a cobra,
00:40:03paralyzing the nerve centers of the body,
00:40:06but it acts much more quickly than cobra venom.
00:40:09I had no serum for the bite of a mamba,
00:40:12so I had to be very careful how I handled it.
00:40:21Mambas have the characteristic of traveling with their heads
00:40:24held high above the ground,
00:40:27which makes it very difficult to pin them down.
00:40:36When a mamba is angry, he flattens his neck.
00:40:40There, now I have his head pinned down.
00:40:46And now it's all over but to pick him up
00:40:49and pop him into a sack and send him by air to America.
00:40:52He is perfectly uninjured and in excellent condition
00:40:55and he measured exactly eight feet long.
00:41:00Mambas are long, thin, graceful snakes,
00:41:03but they can be dangerous.
00:41:07Mambas are long, thin, graceful snakes
00:41:10and 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.
00:41:26And 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.
00:42:26I asked this fine-looking tribesman to come back the next morning
00:42:29for some more penicillin.
00:42:32His trouble was cleared up in one week.
00:42:40There are lots of chores to take care of around camp.
00:42:43My baby reed buck needed her bottle every four or five hours.
00:42:47And Trudy whooped and hollered like a little girl looking for attention.
00:42:54And I had to take time out occasionally for a bath for myself
00:42:57and out here there was such a water shortage
00:43:00that I had to bathe in dishwater and save the water after the bath.
00:43:04Meanwhile, Sputnik and Mutnik fought over last night's kudu bone.
00:43:12Leopards grow very fast and in just seven months,
00:43:15these leopards grew to be a real armful.
00:43:18But chimps don't grow nearly as fast as leopards,
00:43:21and they don't have as many legs as chimps do.
00:43:24They're not as fast as chimps,
00:43:27but they're not as fast as leopards.
00:43:30And every time I took these beasts out of the compound,
00:43:33Trudy ran for the truck.
00:43:40She wanted no part of these animals anymore.
00:43:45Old Sputnik loved to play rough house
00:43:48and you just couldn't be too rough with him.
00:43:51You could drop him and kick him and step on him
00:43:54right up to the point of breaking his ribs and he'd come back for more.
00:43:57But the thing he loved the best
00:44:00was to be laid on his back and tickled.
00:44:14Sputnik had a passion for going to the back of my neck.
00:44:17After I'd played rough house with him,
00:44:20the back of my neck was scratched and bleeding,
00:44:23but of course it was all in fun.
00:44:28Sputnik weighed about 75 pounds at this point.
00:44:43Boy, I wish he'd leave the back of my neck alone.
00:44:58Sputnik's favorite playmate was Jackie,
00:45:01a dog that belonged to a professional hunter in Livingston.
00:45:04And although they were about the same size and weight,
00:45:07you can see that nature intended them
00:45:10for entirely different functions
00:45:13by the difference in the size of their paws.
00:45:16These two fellas were fast friends.
00:45:19They really loved each other.
00:45:23These are two lions
00:45:26in the Springs Game Reserve in the Transvaal.
00:45:29I included these pictures
00:45:32to show that alongside of Sputnik and Mutnik,
00:45:35these two fellas had absolutely no manners whatsoever.
00:45:38They are not my lions. I'm just visiting them.
00:45:46Each time I played with these beasts,
00:45:49it cost me a shirt, a pair of pants, and a bit of hide.
00:46:07There's the beginning of the end of my shirt.
00:46:20One day, a little boy came running to my camp
00:46:23and told me that a native in the nearby village
00:46:26had been bitten by a cobra a few hours before.
00:46:33I grabbed my hypodermic syringe and serum,
00:46:36and I followed him.
00:46:50But I was too late.
00:47:05I heard a native woman shout,
00:47:08which in the Sulawesi language means snake.
00:47:14It was an Egyptian cobra.
00:47:17I couldn't find a stick long enough to pin him down with,
00:47:20so I'll use a twig and capture him
00:47:23by 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,
00:47:32and I've got to be certain of my aim.
00:47:35This is my helper.
00:47:47I've got to be certain of my aim.
00:48:17This is the snake the American Museum of Natural History
00:48:20was looking for.
00:48:23They believe that Egyptian cobras from this district
00:48:26are a new subspecies,
00:48:29so I sent him off to the museum by air express.
00:48:38A couple of months later,
00:48:41I pitched my camp in a village of bushmen
00:48:44for a professor of anthropology in America.
00:48:47I asked this bushman to tell me
00:48:50how he collected honey in the forest,
00:48:53and I took it down on my tape recorder.
00:48:59And 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
00:49:15that the little man in the black box
00:49:18said exactly the same thing the same way he did.
00:49:23After recording his voice for posterity,
00:49:26I gave him some stainless steel mirrors
00:49:29and inexpensive knives.
00:49:32Then I had a chat with the induna, or local chief.
00:49:35He had a sad story to tell me.
00:49:38He said that a lion had killed their hunting dogs.
00:49:41That's because they depended upon their dogs
00:49:44to help them get fresh meat.
00:49:47He asked me if I would shoot the lion.
00:49:50I promised I would look for him the next day
00:49:53and shoot him if possible.
00:49:56I started out the next morning
00:49:59with my two best Bantu trackers
00:50:02from the carcass of one of the dogs,
00:50:05which showed lots of fresh lion tracks.
00:50:08We knew we would come upon him in a matter of minutes.
00:50:38It must have wounded him badly.
00:50:41In Diawana, Banduki Piga Simba,
00:50:44which in Swahili means yes, guana,
00:50:47the gun did strike the lion.
00:51:38After me, George.
00:52:08The third shot went through his spine
00:52:11and he died just as he struck me.
00:52:14He was a full-grown male
00:52:17that weighed about 450 pounds.
00:52:20I asked my native to go to the nearest village
00:52:23and bring back a lot of others
00:52:26to help carry this beast back to the camp for skinning.
00:52:33That African who is well known
00:52:37for waving his arms in the foreground
00:52:40was accidentally shot and killed the next day
00:52:43by another native with the same rifle that shot that lion.
00:52:46It is a good object lesson
00:52:49in the fact that you can never be too careful
00:52:52in the handling of firearms.
00:53:07Then I headed for Fort Portal, Uganda,
00:53:10where I had been invited by the government
00:53:13to witness the rare event of exploration
00:53:16in modern times.
00:53:19There is a huge marketplace here for natives.
00:53:22Fort Portal is the traditional jumping-off point
00:53:25for expeditions up the mountains of the moon.
00:53:28It is a great place to visit
00:53:31and it is a great place to visit
00:53:34and it is a great place to visit
00:53:37and it is a great place to visit
00:53:40and it is a great place to visit
00:53:43and it is a great place to visit
00:53:46and it was here that I met with the chief mapper for Uganda.
00:53:49He explained that the government
00:53:52is sending an expedition to the top of the mountains of the moon
00:53:55to map the upper reaches of the Nyamagosani river,
00:53:58which has never been seen or mapped
00:54:01of the solid cloud coverage. According to the government, no one to their knowledge
00:54:06has ever set foot in that river valley above the 7,000-foot level before.
00:54:12Three weeks later, we started out at the north end of Lake Edward with 50 African porters.
00:54:16The first order of business was a negotiation over wages, and this consumed exactly two
00:54:21hours. After compromising on a wage, we got together the food for the porters. We had
00:54:38150 pounds of dried hippo meat, 600 pounds of peanuts, 1,200 pounds of cassava flour,
00:54:43and a live goat and sheep to provide fresh meat. We doled out blankets because where
00:54:50we're going, the altitude is high and the temperature is low. Brunzori is higher than
00:54:55any of the Alps in Europe. The summit is at 16,800 feet above sea level, and there's ice
00:55:01at the top year-round. Headloads were weighed out at 50 pounds apiece. We have a 50-mile walk
00:55:07ahead of us because we're crossing the range in the long direction from south to north.
00:55:11Now starts a long, hard, three-week climb, which cost us the life of one man before it
00:55:28was finished. Cheetah wandered in off the plains to the foothills of Brunzori,
00:55:36and it was here that we saw more than a dozen different kinds of lizards. The
00:55:44streams were numbingly cold because they were the runoff from glaciers.
00:55:57We saw lots of game in the rainforest on the approach.
00:56:02Even a few pythons. Soon we left far below us the villages from which our Bakonjo tribesmen
00:56:16came. We picked these Bakonjo because they live in the foothills and are accustomed to
00:56:21carrying heavy loads up steep slopes. They are tough, wiry Africans. The chimps that we saw
00:56:29along the way were talking to each other in chimpanzee. We chopped firewood at the
00:56:37end of the seventh day at an elevation of about 7,000 feet. Some of us camped in a clearing on
00:56:45the right and some on the left. One of our men caught a tree hyrax in a snare and they carved
00:57:01it up for supper that night. It was here that we saw the typical creeping crawling creatures
00:57:21so characteristic of this part of Africa, including the safari ant, the most insidious
00:57:26insect in all of Africa bar none. At the end of the eighth day our natives collected moss
00:57:32for mattresses. Then they broke out their cassava flour which is made by grinding the roots of the
00:57:40manioc tree. This is their staple diet. They mix it with water, stir it over a fire and roll it
00:57:45into little balls and pop it into their mouths. And it tastes terrible.
00:57:52But they love it. They also had mutton for the evening meal. We didn't go much for the
00:58:14cassava flour so we broke out some tin goods. The man on the left is the head of the Department
00:58:24of Lands and Surveys for the Uganda government. And this is a British mountain climber who was
00:58:40invited to guide us across the ice fields. He's had considerable experience climbing the
00:58:44Himalayas of Tibet. And this seedy looking character is yours truly. After a satisfying
00:58:54meal the boys fashion pipes from long-stemmed jungle plants. And then the clouds rolled in.
00:59:11Ruanzori is almost constantly shrouded in clouds. In a few minutes the visibility dropped to a few
00:59:23yards and it was cold and clammy. This is typical Ruanzori weather. Next morning we got up early.
00:59:43We took sightings on the elevations of nearby peaks and found in many instances the latest
00:59:50government charts were in error. And now the temperature dropped close to the freezing point.
00:59:58There is the valley through which the government suspects the Nyamagosani River flows. They're not
01:00:07sure because it has never been seen above the 7,000 foot level before and we are much higher
01:00:11than that now. As usual it is shrouded in heavy mist. And there is the source of that river at
01:00:1813,500 feet above sea level. This is the first time it has ever been seen or filmed. The river
01:00:26had an eerie appearance because it was so heavily shrouded in mist. We wanted to map the upper
01:00:31reaches of this river but we were defeated by logistics because we had a seven-day march to a
01:00:35point where an advance party had cashed away food for the porters at a forward base and had only a
01:00:41seven-day supply of porter food remaining. Which meant that we had to start out the very next day
01:00:46if we were to keep from running out of food. This happened because our porters were eating at a
01:00:50higher rate than we had calculated on. The river flowed through a forest which was festooned with
01:01:01hanging moss. We saw a placid pool at the 12,000 foot level. We checked our charts for the best
01:01:19approach to the rock divide which separates us from the snow peaks which is where the advance
01:01:24party had cashed away the food. And now starts the hardest, coldest part of the climb. It rained
01:01:37for 17 days out of the three weeks which made the rocks doubly slippery and treacherous. All of our
01:01:48gear was constantly soaking because of the incessant rain and because the sun never shone long enough
01:01:53for us to dry it out. When the temperature dropped below freezing we found we often had ice in the
01:01:58tent in the mornings. One of the men in the advance party died of pneumonia four days after they
01:02:03crossed the tree line. He was a 31 year old Briton. This is the first time in my life that I had ever
01:02:19climbed a really big mountain and it will probably be the last. We saw a lake which was discovered two
01:02:31years previously but which remained unnamed. It is the policy of the Uganda government to name new
01:02:37geographical features after local names. Our guide said he calls it Kachopi. Henceforth on all
01:02:42government charts this will be known as Lake Kachopi. This is the top of the rock divide which
01:02:49separates us from the snow peaks.
01:03:11And there at the foot of this glacier are two tiny huts. In one of these the advance party cashed away food and left
01:03:18behind one of their men who's been awaiting our arrival for one week.
01:03:30Needless to say he was very pleased to see us. He is a young Oxford graduate who is now in the government
01:03:37service in Tanzania. He said that he had taken sightings on the elevation and azimuths of nearby peaks and
01:03:46found many errors in the latest government charts just as we have. It's not hard to realize when you
01:03:51consider that Rwenzori was discovered less than 100 years ago and a good deal of the upper reaches still
01:03:57remain incompletely mapped. After a warm meal in his hut we started out across the ice fields which
01:04:08believe it or not are right on the equator. There is ice up here all year round. We are at the top
01:04:14of Stanley Mountain at the very summit of the mountains of the moon with Uganda on our left and
01:04:19the Congo on our right. These glaciers are actually rivers of ice.
01:04:28Our progress here dropped to less than one half mile per day not only because of the
01:04:45rarefied air but because of the steepness of some of the glaciers that we had to cross. There were
01:04:51huge crevasses which were about 200 feet deep covered by a thin crust of ice and we had to be
01:04:57very careful how we walked across these areas not to fall through. These are the very first drops of
01:05:03the White Nile from a glacier melting at the top of Rwenzori. These drops joined together with the
01:05:08drops from other glaciers to form tiny rivulets which race down the rocky faces. These rivulets
01:05:14joined together to form little streams that run through the vegetation a few thousand feet below
01:05:18and the streams combined to form a real river which ultimately becomes the mighty Nile of Egypt.
01:05:24At this point the entire volume of the Nile surges through a narrow cleft of rock only 19
01:05:34feet wide as it races toward Lake Albert. There is tremendous thunder and power in this tiny little
01:05:42chasm. So it is here on the roof of Africa that the Nile is born nearly 4,000 miles from its mouth
01:05:53in the Mediterranean. From rivers of ice to mountains of fire. Less than 100 miles from
01:06:02Rwenzori a volcano was in full eruption. I asked the owner of a light plane if he would fly me over
01:06:08it. He said he would be pleased to as he'd seen the smoke from the eruption a few days before and
01:06:12was just as curious to see it at close range as I was. This volcano was born from a perfectly flat
01:06:18forest when a fissure suddenly opened up in the ground and molten lava flew skyward. It was one
01:06:24of the rare instances in recorded times that a volcano was born from a perfectly flat surface.
01:06:29We saw great destruction to the forest below us as a result of the lava flows. A river of
01:06:50molten lava flowed for 16 miles through the forest causing the destruction of thousands
01:06:55of acres of woodland. Those patches of white are steam resulting from the rain that's falling now
01:07:01vaporizing when it strikes the hot lava.
01:07:25We felt intense heat inside the cockpit on the side facing the eruption.
01:07:56This is how the Sun looked through the column of steam coming out of the crater. Back down on the
01:08:06ground I hired four Congolese to carry my photo and camping gear and we went on a foot safari to
01:08:12get a closer look. The acid fallout from the crater killed all the vegetation for a radius of
01:08:1720 miles. The trees are completely denuded of their leaves from the acid fallout. The lava
01:08:26fields were very, very hot and we had to step lively. It was raining and when the rain struck
01:08:44the hot lava it vaporized instantly cutting our visibility down to a few yards. At times we didn't
01:08:50know whether we were walking toward the volcano or away from it. The only way we could tell was
01:08:54by homing in on the tremendous roar and sometimes this was very deceptive. We had to call to each
01:09:04other constantly to keep from being separated and in spite of that one of my natives was lost for
01:09:09more than an hour. When the rain stopped the visibility cleared and we found this Kingfisher
01:09:18which apparently died from the intense gases coming out of the crater. Now we were walking
01:09:23across scoriaceous lava, that is huge blocks of very jagged lava which is sharp as glass and you
01:09:29must be very careful how you walk across it not to let the calves of your legs rub against it or
01:09:34it would cut them to ribbons. When we were within half a mile of the eruption we were walking on
01:09:49about 14 inches of porous black ash which crunched audibly as we stepped across it. Some of this
01:09:55light black ash was being carried more than 20 miles away by the winds aloft. Molten lava flowed
01:10:03around 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. The temperature of molten lava is about
01:10:172,500 degrees Fahrenheit or about the same as molten steel. I threw a rock in this river of
01:10:30molten lava and it bounced and floated because it was the same density as the river itself.
01:10:45There were huge boulders floating in the river, boulders as large as automobiles.
01:11:00This 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
01:11:30in the eastern part of the Congo in Kivu province. My natives were deathly afraid of this volcano,
01:11:36not only for obvious reasons but because they were so steeped in superstition they thought
01:11:41this was their fire god and they thought that if they got too close he would recognize their
01:11:46faces. So 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
01:12:25water vapor and this is one of the rare examples of newborn water on the face of the earth.
01:13:13This volcano erupted continuously for five months and then after causing destruction to thousands of
01:13:40acres of woodland the eruption slackened. And then I could look right down into the throat
01:13:50and see the boiling seething lake of molten lava at the very bottom. I came to Africa in a quest
01:13:57for high adventure and now I was leaving it with the feeling that I had found it indeed
01:14:01and more than a fair share for one man.